ART CITIES:N.York-Joel Shapiro
In his work since the late ‘60s, Joel Shapiro is well known for his geometric, abstract sculptures. In these sculptures that often allude to the human figure, Shapiro recombines simple forms to play with the internal and external relationships that define a sculpture. He looks at how the individual parts relate to one another, and how the sculpture as a whole relates to its surroundings (floor, ceiling, and viewer).
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Dominique Lévy Gallery Archive
Joel Shapiro at Dominique Lévy Gallery in New York presents early wood wall reliefs created the period 1978-80, alongside a new site-specific installation. Shapiro’s early work, including the wood wall reliefs, was created in part as a response to Minimalism’s “Specific objects”, wherein color, texture, weight, shape, and the dynamic relationship between object and space are prioritized. However, Shapiro’s wall reliefs, like his iconic bronze and plaster floor sculptures, also on view in the exhibition, question Minimalism’s insistence on non-referentiality, introducing again into the art object ambiguous states of psychological and affectual intensity. In the wall reliefs, traces of the artist’s hand interrupt the neutral geometric vocabulary of Minimalism. The sculptures are made of simple shapes and angular cutouts, built up in stratified layers of distinct wood elements. This mode of fabrication, coupled with unconcealed saw marks, makes Shapiro’s process visible and rewards a close viewing. Shapiro often coats the reliefs in a light, uniform coat of color, allowing the underlying wood to remain partially visible. In painting the works a single color, the artist binds the forms together under a cohesive rubric, creating volumetrically dense structures. His new site-specific installation for the exhibition, occupies the second floor of the Gallery. This sculpture is part of this recent body of work concerned with the articulation of form in architectural space, the artist suspends painted rough wood elements in air by means of fishing line connecting them to the gallery floors and ceiling. To create these, Shapiro cuts the wood and paints it with hypersaturated dry pigment in casein emulsion. Shapiro has spoken of these installations as being “Expansive” and “Joyful” in their refusal to be “Limited by architecture and by the ground and the wall and right angles”. This new installation presents an intense engagement with the gallery space, implicating both architecture and viewer’s bodies in the work.
Info: Dominique Lévy Gallery, 909 Madison Avenue, New York, Duration 28/10/16-7/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.dominique-levy.com
