The American artist Fred Sandback has been creating sculpture from, first, fine steel rods, and more recently, yarn, for almost three decades. This exhibition will bring together a number of discrete works, both new and old (the latter from Dia's extensive collection of Sandback work.

Press Release

American artist Fred Sandback's installation entitled Sculpture, opens to the public at Dia Center for the Arts, 548 West 22nd Street, New York City, on September 12, 1996. The exhibition, located in the second floor gallery, remains on view through June 29, 1997. Gallery hours are Thursday through Sunday, 12 noon to 6 p.m.

Sculpture is an installation of new works together with older pieces from Dia's extensive collection of Sandback's art. For more than twenty-five years, Sandback has been using linear elements, in particular colored yarns to give physical form, together with impressions of palpability, to the space his work delimits. Defining the boundaries of three-dimensional geometric forms with these minimal means Sandback creates discrete works that co-exist within the continuum of the exhibition space.

Fred Sandback was born in Bronxville, New York in 1943. After studying first philosophy then sculpture at Yale University he moved to New York City where he continues to live and work. Since the late 1960s Sandback has exhibited extensively in the United States and internationally, and his work is represented in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, among others.

Background information on Sculpture will be available at Dia's world wide web site located at www.diacenter.org.

Dia Center for the Arts is a tax-exempt charitable organization. Established in 1974, the organization has become one of the largest in the United States dedicated to contemporary art and contemporary culture. In fulfilling this commitment, Dia sustains diverse programming in poetry, arts education, and critical discourse and debate via lectures and symposia.

In addition, it maintains on a long-term basis works of art not easily accommodated by conventional museums. Dia serves as a conduit for realizing these projects, as intimated by the Greek word from which it takes its name. Dia's long-term projects include Joseph Beuys's 7000 Oaks; Walter De Maria's The Broken Kilometer, The Lightning Field, and The New York Earth Room; La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela's Dream House and The Dan Flavin Art Institute; Cy Twombly Gallery; and The Andy Warhol Museum.

Current programs are supported in part by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany through the German Consulate General of New York; Axe-Houghton Foundation; The Bohen Foundation; The Brown Foundation; The Cowles Charitable Trust; The Getty Grant Program; The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; Lannan Foundation; Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc.; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Arthur Ross Foundation; Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund at Community Funds, Inc.; The Chase Manhattan Bank; Philip Morris Companies Inc.; Tag Heuer; Time Warner Inc.; and the individual members of the Dia Art Council.

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For additional information or materials contact:
Press Department, Dia Art Foundation, press@diaart.org or 212 293 5518