In a career that spans over four decades, Joel Shapiro has continually found new ways to imbue minimal, geometric forms and materials with emotion, life, and complexity. Characteristic of his best-known work, Untitled uses an economy of elements to hint at two figures leaning, stretching, or even falling. Shapiro makes these works from wood and then casts them in bronze, leaving wood grain, glue drips, and splintered edges visible. A master of lyrical juxtapositions, Shapiro offers us a work that appears perfectly balanced, yet also in motion. Shapiro’s work has been the subject of many one-person shows, including at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; the Whitney Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Museum Ludwig, Cologne. His work is in numerous public collections in the United States and abroad.
