Joel Shapiro
New York, NY
Joel Shapiro
Born in 1941 in Queens, New York, Joel Shapiro is known for artwork that manages to paradoxically convey a sense of movement through stationery sculpture. He earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from New York University. He has created many large-scale public works throughout the world, and his work is collected widely by many major museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Louisiana Museum for Modern Art, Denmark and the Tate Gallery in London.
The Artist Profile Archive interviewed Joel in his expansive Long Island City studio brimming with sculptures and maquettes. His 2014 show at Pace New York, Works on Paper 2011-2013 was also filmed.
“…the way you become an artist is via consensus anyway. I mean, it’s inside of you, but it’s not going to come out without peer consensus and being involved in discourse with other people. And it’s not as if an artist is discovered in the woodpile. I mean, they don’t come out of nowhere. They evolve.
I think art is a sort of basic human endeavor. And I think, in the end, art is about humanity. It’s about some confirmation and commonality. So it could be enlightening. And it’s like literature, the theatre. It could be good, not so good. It can be amusing and engrossing, challenging, repulsive. I mean, it’s a form of human communication and an important form. And I think you can make people recognize aspects of their life that they may not have recognized. It’s a discourse, like having a conversation, except you’re not having a conversation with someone else. You’re having a conversation with somebody else via their visualization. And it can be very beautiful, very uplifting, very spiritual, or could be deeply depressing. I mean, I think art’s important, very important for me and sort of my salvation.”
“When you’re really working, it’s about some big leap of faith. And you also know when you’ve really done something….you want this moment of departure from what you’ve known. That’s the great emotional high of being an artist….you’re in some new realm.
Chronologically, I would be a post-minimalist but I think all those categories are relatively meaningless and artists are always trying to transcend any category they are pegged into anyway. At least I do.”
“Exuberance. That’s what I really want is exuberance. Child’s play— that’s what we want. So, I really think that creativity has a lot to do with a certain abandonment that allows you to find these combinations of form that have some significance… And it’s a kind of portrait of our time, it gives you greater understanding and insight. Perhaps. ”
