Joel Shapiro

A number of free-hanging, colored wooden beams help to generate a new feeling for what space and sculpture can be. American sculptor Joel Shapiro (*1941) will create an installation of new and preexisting works for the Museum Ludwig’s big Oberlichtsaal. The pieces will be interwoven into a new structure in the gallery space.

Freely floating or barely visible and suspended from ceiling or floor on thin wires, Shapiro’s works move in space, thereby transforming the gallery itself into an equally immense and airy sculpture. The picture varies with each step, as borders, dimensions, and colors change. The artist toys both with perception and the construction of space, while his works are not exclusively tied to this one room. Despite all his connections to modernist and minimalist traditions, he produces surprising (work)-constellations and totally new spatial perceptions. When dealing with materials and also in his relationship vis-à-vis space, the recurring issue is transformation. He addresses alteration and termination of supposedly established attributions. Although reduced to basic geometric forms and made of painted wood, the works in the show develop an almost flowing ease and space-dissolving movement.