Joel Shapiro

One of the aspects that makes Joel Shapiro´s sculpture and drawings so desirable that his work is included in practically every museum collection, is that he has been able to add a good dose of playfulness to minimalism.

Joel Shapiro´s work process includes an extraordinary effort to find a perfect balance in the movement of his walking or dancing figures. When crating a new figurative sculpture, the effort goes into finding a language that is lively and joyful in spite of the strict minimalistic yet colorful forms that his sculptures are based on. If it is an abstract work, he still manages to find a lively and playful language with limited forms. The drawings offer more variation in form and, with the exception of his earliest works, include the element of playful colors, and it is the playful colors that he lately has experimented more and more with in both figurative and abstract sculptures.

If one tries to find modern art influences it has to be the work of Malevitj with the restraint and playfulness of Mondrian and perhaps the forms of a minimalist, geometrical Giacometti. This makes his work truly distinctly unique in a world where we are overwhelmed by indistinct and unrecognizable images.