Untitled (One of Four Diagonals) 1970

Fred Sandback, sometime in the late twentieth century, took a simple piece of coloured yarn, or cord and stretched it diagonally across a room. I love this because, well, what is it? Is it sculpture? Drawing? Architecture? I imagine Fred, with his cord, mapping the negative space, tracing lines like you might when you are looking at a still life and trying to see how forms intersect. He’s thinking about edges, planes, and how our eyes make connections. This single gesture, the placement of one line, changes everything. It’s like he’s taken a painting and exploded it, so we can walk inside. It’s pure space, activated. Sandback probably didn’t think of it that way, but for a painter like me, I see the possibility of how one thing leads to another, and another, in an ongoing conversation across time.