Post-Maximum Sculptor Died in 83

The work of the famous latter-slightest sculptor Joel Shapiro explores the transformation of scale and perception, who died Saturday at the age of 83. this New York Times The report said he has been battling acute myeloid leukemia.

Shapiro’s works are widely seen, especially his sculptures, made of bronze and aluminum, can be seen everywhere from the Holocaust Museum to the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although these sculptures are full of the arrogant concepts that guide artistic creation, they are also quirky, whimsical, with limbs seemingly leaping and waving.

Typically, these sculptures are first made on wood and then translated into metal. Some of them painted in bright colors – an aversion to minimalism, a movement that dominated New York in the early 1970s when Shapiro’s work attracted the attention of critics and dealers.

Shapiro’s earliest works relied on minimalist language and then subverted it. He made a series of drawings, by painting his fingers and pressing his tips on a piece of paper, causing the marking to be arranged to recall the minimalist grid, just that Shapiro’s rows are irregular and unruly.

He also relies on industrial materials, another sign of minimalism, but his use seems to undermine traditional logic. Untitled: 75 lbs. (1970) consists of magnesium rods and a lead rod, both on display on the floor. Although the two bars weigh exactly 75 pounds, they are different in size, making them unique.

In the 1970s, at Paula Cooper Gallery, a New York space that showed Shapiro almost throughout his career, the artist showed objects that seemed to surprise the eyes – a small house of cast iron and bronze, a chair of Itty Bitty, which could be easily kicked with one foot.

“I think they stick to their sense of self and despite the space around them, at the same time, they are part of it.” Brooklyn Railroad In 2007. Their tiny is a response to the commemorative nature of minimalism, and their identifiable forms are distinguished from the abstract sculptures seen widely in New York at the time.

By the 1980s, Shapiro’s works began to appear more mean, leading him to the path of creating his oversized sculptures, similar to characters, made of metal beams. “I’m interested in those moments that seem like a number and other moments that look like a pile of wood,” he said.

Although Shapiro’s art has expanded greatly in height, his work towering above the audience in a recent performance at Pace Gallery in New York, he seems to be shocked by the idea that he finally made art on a huge scale. “Yes, I did a big deal,” Shapiro told bomb 2009 magazine interviewer. “They aren’t huge. They can be huge. I think they’re not too swollen.” When asked for clarification, he said: “Expansion is a sculptural disease.”

Joel Shapiro was born on September 27, 1941 in New York. His father is an internal expert and his mother is a biologist. After World War II, they raised Shapiro and his sister Joan in Queens, Sunnyside.

Shapiro attended New York University, his parents’ alma mater, with the goal of becoming a doctor by himself Brooklyn Railroad Interview: “The only thing I’m good at is the art of making.” He said he has confirmed the treatment. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964, he joined the Peace Corps from 1965 to 1967 and resided in southern India. exist rail During the interview, Shapiro praised the experience as “a sense of self-esteem and diversity in life in general, but may also become very real as an artist for the first time.”

He then returned to NYU this time, and despite his lack of an undergraduate degree in the subject, he accepted him. Shapiro was married to Amy Snider at the time. They had a child, Ivy Shapiro, and divorced in 1972. He also worked at the Jewish Museum, where he helped install exhibitions and Polish silver items in the institution’s collection.

Shapiro’s major breakthrough was the 1969 “Anti-Indoctrination: Program/Materials”, an exhibition at the Whitney Museum curated by Marcia Tucker, which helped formalize the slightest art movements afterwards, including Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman and Rafael Ferrer. This was followed by a performance by Paula Cooper, which Shapiro introduced in the first Clocktower Gallery exhibition in 1973, which eventually became the PS1 Center for Contemporary Art, now known as the MOMA PS1. In 1978, he married Ellen Phelan.

His works have been seen in some of the world’s largest museums and galleries, including representatives of Shapiro since 1992.

“For more than 30 years, I’m honored to represent Joel Shapiro and see him as a close friend,” Pace founder Arne Glimcher said in a statement on Sunday. “His early sculptures expanded the possibilities of scale, and in his mature symbolic sculptures he used the power of nature itself. Through endless inventions, the instability of balance expresses pure energy, just like Joel. I’ll miss him a lot.”

Apart from a few works, Shapiro never titled his art. Ask why railhe said: “I am not a poet. Form is its own language.”