Joel Shapiro

Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of wall-mounted, free-standing, and suspended sculptures by Joel Shapiro.

Foregrounding the artist’s ongoing exploration of the relationships between color, form, scale, and material.

The recent works in wood and one in bronze constituting the artist’s upcoming East Hampton presentation expand upon his longstanding experimentation with his chosen materials and continue his preoccupation with sculpture’s capacity to alter one’s sense of space and scale. The way Shapiro’s works engage architecture and landscape has always been of great interest to the artist, and the group of sculptures included in his forthcoming exhibition exemplify his ability to activate the entirety of a gallery and make the viewer aware of their own physicality. Whether suspended from the ceiling, projecting from the wall, or rising from the floor, these works, whose precarious joins underscore their own fragility and lightness, present gravity as an essential aspect of sculpture. Painted in tones that range from subtle to somber to brilliant—and imbued with a sense of spontaneity essential to their construction—these sculptures reflect color’s important role in Shapiro’s esteemed career and his ceaseless engagement with the possibilities of sculptural form.