Fred Sandback At Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin

Hamburger Bahnhof’s exhibition Fred Sandback: Simple Facts features the legendary Minimalist artist’s trendsetting spatial installations. In an oeuvre dedicated to installations, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and site-specific works, the American artist was cutting-edge, contributing to many art forms still relevant today. Twenty years after his death, this solo exhibition invites viewers to discover one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Although his works have been shown internationally since 1968 – especially in German-speaking countries – this is Sandback’s first solo exhibition at a museum in Berlin.

The exhibits are based on a work Sandback (1943‒2003) originally conceived in 1975 for the Kunstraum München (Munich): 64 Variations on a Three-Part Sculpture. The positions of the sculptures on display will be changed repeatedly throughout the exhibition so that all 64 variations can be presented. The Munich series is contextualized within Sandback’s artistic oeuvre by a selection of his pioneering installations and archival materials spanning several decades ‒ including an early sculpture in the Nationalgalerie collection from 1969, made by the artist from elastic cord.

The works make references to diverse aspects of Sandback’s artistic practice, for instance, to his “drawings in space” – as he called them – that he began making in the 1960s with yarn and elastic cord. With precision and extremely reduced means, the artist created iconic sculptural installations uniquely concerned with the relationship of the visible object to the invisible space surrounding it.

Fred Sandback: Simple Facts is curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, directors of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.

A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin