Joel Shapiro

Carling Dalenson is pleased to present an exhibition of new drawings by American artist Joel Shapiro.

Joel Shapiro was born in 1941. He spent his childhood in Sunnyside, Queens, and went on to graduate with an M.A. from New York University. Like many in his generation, he joined the Peace Corps and served in India. Shapiro has stated that his experiences in India, particularly exposed to Indian art provoked the prospect of being an artist.

From early on, Shapiro was interested in reflecting psychological states in shapes and structure, often by evoking their relation to space. This concern has been constant throughout his career, but taken on many different forms. From small-scale abstract objects, painting, to the large-scale sculptures which have become his characteristic form of expression since the 1980s. He draws inspiration from classical greek sculpture as well as modernist abstraction and sculpture, creating a unique form of figuration. These playful works thus blur the distinction between representation and abstraction, often depicting movement and figure in a minimalist manner. Shapiro in this sense has become at the same time a master and subverter of the modern figurative tradition.

Shapiro has produced over thirty large commissions of public sculptures in major cities around the world, including the monumental ”Blue” at the newly expanded Kennedy Center in Washington DC. He has also been the subject of over 160 international solo-exhibitions and retrospectives.