Art, Architecture, and English

Fred Sandback illustrates the use of spatial exploration through the experimentation of yarn. By stretching yarn across the room from various locations, he is able to successfully redesign a space. Based on his work in the David Zwirner Gallery, one can speculate the spatial explorations Sandback aims to reveal. An example of such exploration would be the stretching of yarn across the diagonal of a white room. The room has three separate doorways, in which, the viewers first enter from the left side of the room. Two exits are located on the same side directly to the viewers left hand side. Due to the placement of this yarn, which basically divides the room, visitors decide to enter through the first exit on the left instead of the exit on the further left hand side. This is mostly because of the yarn. As it is stretched diagonally across the room, it divides the space in a way that prevents most people that are standing erect, from passing through.

Source: http://www.davidzwirner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/16-Variations-and-Mikado-600x450.jpg

In our own attempt to work with space in Sandback's style, we chose a room and implemented the use of string in place of yarn. We were able to recreate Sandback's spatial exploration by using strings to divide a room. In this room, we stretched out the string at a height that only certain people are able to pass through. Through this experimentation we were able to understand how circulation works in the use of spatial division. Depending on how string/yarn is stretched in spatial divisions, the area is completely redesigned. These string-obstacles become some sort of surface that acts just as well as a barrier or furniture. Ironically, strings and yarns are thin and the walls they create are not at all impenetrable, yet, the space they occupy and the extent they stretch out to are almost seen as an impassable force.