Joel Shapiro

Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to present a special exhibition focusing on Joel Shapiro’s exploration of color, spanning historic works on paper to new sculptures completed this year.

In the largest gallery and the front window, four irregular geometric volumes are placed on the floor or tethered at various heights, suspended in a complex spatial arrangement that must be moved through to be perceived. Titled Yellow Then, Really Blue (After All), Orange and Flush after their radiant tones, each asymmetric mass brings a disquieting presence that informs an other-worldly environment. [1] Originally exhibited at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, in 2016, this show will present the artist’s monumental installation to New York audiences for the first time.

Complementing the sculptures are playful works on paper that use color to transition from representation to abstraction. Dating to the early 1970s, these intimately-scaled studies are contemporary to Shapiro’s first one-person exhibitions at Paula Cooper Gallery, and similarly embrace themes of buoyancy and flight. Bold blocks of color abound in a group of gouaches from an important period of chromatic exploration, some of which were part of the first presentation of this body of work at the gallery in 1984.

In the surrounding rooms, new suspended and floor-bound sculptures project color into space, upending perspectival expectations with their apparent weightlessness. Shapiro’s impulsive assembly is laid bare by the tenuous connections between parts, and their chromatic complexity is enhanced by the shadows and reflections that produce new and unforeseen tones.

1 - Jed Morse, “Joel Shapiro: Waking Dreams,” in Joel Shapiro (Dallas: Nasher Sculpture Center, 2016), p. 29.