In actual fact I’m referring to the memory of walking into the house on my favourite street in Melbourne. It’s possibly my favourite house in my beloved city. It is a modernists dream, I was trying to concentrate on the friendly lady inhabitant but the impact of the experience of walking into larger space was almost overwhelming. I’m talking about SPACE. Not walls, rooms, building, home, decor, house, architecture, these all melted away – that was all completely invisible. All I experienced was being in a space, seeing into other space where I could wander, a flow of SPACE. It was all so fluid – a little invisible architecture waterslide for my visual perception. It was brilliant.
Fast Forward. Add Keanu Reeves. He’s dressed in a black trench coat and looks exotic, super fit and really serious. We are standing next to a Fred Sandback sculpture/thing/idea/installation. This is our matrix. We do black flips, kill baddies, my hair is perfect, we land on our feet and then we pash. Sexual fantasies ensue. Thank you Fred. I figure if a multimillionaire can open a private art museum to meet chicks then poor people can go to art exhibitions and indulge in fantasies. The string hums.
I like art that is cleverer than I am. Because art demands an emotional response before before an intellectual engagement. So it is must more satisfying if it is a challenging destination at the end of the road.
At the moment there is vibrant blue string tautly tormenting me and delighting me, because it is smarter than I am.
String.
However it does have brass fittings. There you go, it has some complexity to it. It zings, it hums, it has created space. No, not delineation, not replication of a room, nothing so literal, it has created a sense of something that suggests to me that one day I might even slightly understand quantam physics. It’s there, it could be there, its next to me and I’m in it, and here again I’m outside of it. For some reason, its also kind of funny.
I am not dedicated to abstraction. I wrote a 25,000 word thesis on erotica in religious art for God’s sake. But you know, I understand the dedication. Some people need God, some people need aliens, some people need abstraction.
Fred Sandback installation at the Fox/Jense & Greenwood Street Project in the left corner. Untitled (Sculptural Study, Two-part Cornered Construction), 2008 (& 1982), Blue acrylic yarn. Fred Sandback Estate number 2566 110 x 140 cm. USD $185,000. Photo taken August 2012.
If you want to experience Fred Sandback’s work in person and you live in Australia you will need to save up for an international air fare, or wait. The only way to see it down here is to keep abreast of Jensen Gallery’s exhibitions. I was lucky enough to have my experiential happening at Greenwood Street Projects during Melbourne Art Fair time. Word on the street is that there is also an installation currently at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I’m not sure if we really understand how completely cool it is for a commercial gallery to provide access to work of this international calibre. The internet, photographs, books, only go so far. For some work, it’s all about the experience.
FRED SANDBACK
Untitled (Sculptural Study, Two-part Cornered Construction) 1982
Blue Acrylic Yarn
Fred Sandback Estate Number 2566
Image courtesy Jensen Gallery
FRED SANDBACK
Untitled (Sculptural Study, Two-part Cornered Construction) 2008
Blue Acrylic Yarn
Fred Sandback Estate Number 2566
Detail from Greenwood Street Projects installation.
It just looks like a close up of string? That’s because it is.
Awww. We wear our sunglasses at night…and inside. Photo just for the hell of it and from the public domain. From the Matrix film.
