Since the seventies, Shapiro's sculptural work uses and takes to the extreme some of the basic principles of sculpture, such as scale, to force the viewer's vision, who is abstracted from the position of one who enjoys a tiny, small or medium-sized work to become a participant in his most monumental installations, through a series of geometric elements of basic colors (yellow, orange, red and blue).
Thus, using a vocabulary of often geometric elements, his work, which often blurs the line between figuration and abstraction, explores the possibilities of form while attempting to invigorate the sense of space.
Joel Shapiro, Galería Cayón Madrid, 2022
Joel Shapiro is an American artist known for having developed, since the 1970s, a sculptural oeuvre distinguished by its dynamism and formal elegance. Using a vocabulary of often geometric elements, his work, which often blurs the line between figuration and abstraction, explores the possibilities of sculptural form and attempts to challenge the sense of scale and invigorate the sense of space.
A resident of New York, Shapiro has been the subject of numerous solo and retrospective exhibitions at institutions such as the Whitechapel Gallery, London (1980), the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1982); the Metropolitan Museum Rooftop, New York (2001) the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1985); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1995-1996); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2011); the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2016); Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2017); and the Yale University Art Gallery (2018).
Shapiro's work is installed in public settings in Europe, Asia and North America and is part of international collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Tate Gallery in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Spain, his work can be found in public collections such as the IVAM, Valencia, and the Helga de Alvear Collection, Cáceres.
You can find the press release HERE
Credits:
© Joel Shapiro Studio
Galería Cayón Madrid/Manila/Menorca, 2021.
Photography © Joaquín Cortés Noriega