Joel Shapiro
Joel Shapiro, Float, 2009 and Was Blue, 2010 Installation: Pace Gallery, 2010 534 West 25th Street, New York City Holz, Kasein und Angelschnur – Installationsausmaße variable / Wood, casein and fishing line – Installation dimensions variable Photo: Courtesy Pace Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2010
A number of free-hanging, colored wooden beams help to generate a new feeling for what space and sculpture can be. American sculptor Joel Shapiro (*1941) will create an installation of new and preexisting works for the Museum Ludwig’s big Oberlichtsaal. The pieces will be interwoven into a new structure in the gallery space.
Joel Shapiro
26.2 – 25.9.2011
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday:
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Every first Thursday of the month 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Closed on Monday
Freely floating or barely visible and suspended from ceiling or floor on thin wires, Shapiro’s works move in space, thereby transforming the gallery itself into an equally immense and airy sculpture. The picture varies with each step, as borders, dimensions, and colors change. The artist toys both with perception and the construction of space, while his works are not exclusively tied to this one room. Despite all his connections to modernist and minimalist traditions, he produces surprising (work)-constellations and totally new spatial perceptions. When dealing with materials and also in his relationship vis-à-vis space, the recurring issue is transformation. He addresses alteration and termination of supposedly established attributions. Although reduced to basic geometric forms and made of painted wood, the works in the show develop an almost flowing ease and space-dissolving movement.
Shapiro’s concept is reminiscent of the Russian constructivists: they attributed the highest priority to experiencing space within their art production. Key terms like construction and dynamics as well as their interplay were pivotal to their expansive, voluminous oeuvre. Yet, even as Shapiro plays with this formal heritage, he transgresses it with ease, freeing it from its utopian charge and leaving material and form their space. Born in New York in 1941, Joel Shapiro studied Fine Arts at New York University from 1964-69. In 1976 and in 1980, he represented the United States at the 37th and the 39th Venice Biennale. His works were also included at documenta 6 and documenta 7. Shapiro lives and works in New York.
Dr. Julia Friedrich
Dienstags und donnerstags um 16 Uhr finden regelmäßig öffentliche Führungen statt.
Katalog
A catalogue will be published by the Verlag StrzeleckiBooks
Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig Köln
Additional current Exhibitions
- Modernist Masterpieces. The Haubrich Collection at Museum Ludwig
- Gerhard Richter. Elbe, November, and Other Works
- Saul Steinberg. The Americans
- Phil Collins. In every dream home a heartache
- Andrea Fraser. Wolfgang-Hahn-Prize 2013
