Joel Shapiro’s sculptures hover at the border between the abstract and the figurative. Some of his works, assembled from intertwined boards and lopsided planes in irregular distances and angles, seem accidental. The majority of his constructions, built from oblong rectangular blocks of wood or bronze, raise associations with human figures: some of them stand on one leg, others on two, others lie on the floor, some seem to climb the walls. Some of the figures seem to exist in a state of precarious balance between floating and falling. The cubes can be read as limbs, torsos and heads and, at the expense of sculptural unity, they preserve their autonomy as individual parts vis-à-vis the whole. The simple geometry and the massiveness of the heavy blocks contrast with the seeming instability of the abstract constructions and the body parts themselves – everything seems as though it were about to move.
Joel Shapiro, born in 1941 in New York City, graduated from New York University in 1964 (B.A) and in 1969 (M.A). His work has been the subject of nearly 150 national and international solo exhibitions and retrospectives, and is currently being exhibited at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. Many of his sculptures are located in public spaces in major Asian, European and North American cities, and his work can be found in public collections in the United States and abroad, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Joel Shapiro has received numerous awards. Joel Shapiro lives and works in New York City.
Publications
Exhibitions
Galería Cayón, Madrid, Spain
Pace Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland
Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France
Kasmin Sculpture Garden, New York, NY, USA
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI, USA
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, USA
Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Pace London, London, UK
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX, USA
Dominique Lévy, New York, NY, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany
Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, USA
Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA
Musée d’Art Moderne Saint-Etienne Métropole, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, France
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, USA
Louver Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Texas Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Rice Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
L.A. Louver (South gallery), Venice, CA, USA
Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland
University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMass Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
The Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY, USA
Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Patrick De Brock Gallery, Knokke, Belgium
TOTAH Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Olivier Malingue, London, UK
Talley Dunn Gallery, Dallas, TX, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland
The University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, USA
Luxembourg & Dayan, New York, NY, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland
MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens, NY, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland
Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France
Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Guild Hall Museum, New York, NY, USA
Pace, Menlo Park, CA, USA
Guild Hall, New York, NY, USA
Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York, NY, USA
Clocktower/Knockdown Center, Maspeth, NY, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland
Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA, USA
Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
Industry City, New York, NY, USA
David Klein Gallery, Birmingham, UK
Galerie Patrick Seguin, Paris, France
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, USA