ART CITIES: Hong Kong-Joel Shapiro

Subverting the distinctions between abstraction and representation, Joel Shapiro reconsiders the modern figurative tradition. Shapiro creates abstract geometric sculpture that elicits a sense of movement and engages viewers’ physical and psychological relationships with space. In his recent investigations of the expressive possibility of form and color in space, the artist suspends painted wooden elements from the ceiling, wall, and floor, exploring the projection of thought into space without the constraint of architecture.

By Diitris Lempesis
Photo: Pace Gallery Archive

Born in 1941 in Queens, New York, Joel Shapiro moved to India at the age of twenty-two to spend two years with the Peace Corps before returning to study at New York University, completing his BA in 1964, and his MA in 1969. He soon began experimenting with industrial materials and tools on a large scale, producing sculptures of interconnected pieces that he produced through trial and error with no preparatory sketches. Many of his sculptures resemble bipedal figures running, jumping, bending or dancing, yet they retain the sharp angles and severe lines of geometric abstraction. Although much of his work is based on the minimalism that preceded him, his focus on the human form marks a particular shift forward, and questions the nature of visual space and the ways in which bodies move through it. Joel Shapiro in his first solo presentation in Hong Kong examine hiss practice from the 1990s to the present day. Shapiro, who has maintained a deep interest in exploring—and occasionally erasing—the line between abstraction and figuration, has also been preoccupied with the ways in which sculpture can engage and activate landscape and architecture. By utilizing various materials and procedures throughout his career, Shapiro has ceaselessly explored sculpture’s capacity to alter one’s sense of space, scale, and physicality. The exhibition brings together various sculptures in wood and bronze that highlight aspects of gravity, mass, and form in the artist’s work over the past 30 years. The show will begin with two sculptures created by Shapiro in the 1990s, including a large-scale bronze from 1994–95 that draws one’s attention to the floor as well as a subtly-painted wood sculpture consisting of two entwined figures that in turn draws the viewer’s gaze up the wall of the room. A more recent, partially painted wood sculpture meanwhile appears to be frozen, mid-dash, in the middle of the space. These somewhat heavier forms serve as counterpoints to the works on view in subsequent rooms of the exhibition, which focus on seemingly lighter, more precariously joined sculptures produced by the artist in recent years. Two of these sculptures, one painted an ethereal blue and another a soft yet brilliant yellow, are suspended from the ceiling, touching the floor ever so delicately. The third gallery space will showcase a two-part wall-mounted sculpture and a lithe, dynamic bronze.

Photo Left: Joel Shapiro, untitled, 2019–2021, Bronze, 31 13/16 x 27 1/4 x 27 1/4 inches (80.8 x 69.2 x 69.2 cm), © 2023 Joel Shapiro / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy Pace Gallery. Right: Joel Shapiro, untitled, 2021-2022, wood and casein, 52-5/8″ × 61″ × 21-3/4″ (133.7 cm × 154.9 cm × 55.2 cm), © 2023 Joel Shapiro / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy Pace Gallery

Info: Pace Gallery, 12/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong, Duration: 9/6-20/7/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.pacegallery.com/