Joel Shapiro

Joel Shapiro, born in 1941, is one of the outstanding American sculptors of recent decades. Shapiro himself defined his work as an alternative to the Minimalism of the 1960s. While he took up its design vocabulary, he reversed it by way of figurative allusions and psychological condensation into its opposite. Intentionally small and intimate, his early sculptures nonetheless generate an enormous spatial tension.

Floor Wall Ceiling, the title of this exhibition, is based on the fact that Shapiro’s sculptures utilize the entire available space: They do not merely stand on the floor, but often use the wall as their base or hang from the ceiling. Shapiro is not looking for the effect of a mobile; rather, he is interested in how far gravity plays a part in the work and regulates the position and cohesion of its individual elements.

To learn more about the exhibition, please visit (opens in a new window) Artsy.