Joel Shapiro’s intent behind his piece, Untitled (1980-1), and among several others was “to describe an emotional state, my own longing and desire.” Within this specific piece, the underlying emotion was a transitional feeling between control and lack of control. This line of Shapiro’s work is known to be extremely simple, keeping viewers at arm’s length from suggesting the figure’s emotional state. “In fact, the sculpture is bare enough to reveal that reading them as human representation is a reflex on our part, something we cannot help.” Shapiro today is greatly renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple and rectangular shapes. Like many notable artists, he started from the bottom of the art industry and worked his way up.

About Joel Shapiro

Shapiro is an American sculptor that grew up in Queens, New York with his parents; his mother, a biologist and his father, an internal specialist. He attended New York University intending to become a physician but was unsure of that field becoming his career. He stayed and earned a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree but was convinced that art was the only endeavor he was good at. After college, he spent two years in the Peace Corps (1965-1967) in India as a volunteer where he gained new perspectives of the world. Because he had no preconceptions of India, it was visually exciting and gave him a new source of inspiration. In India Shapiro discovered that art was something he wanted to pursue. His experience “gave him the sense of…possibility of being an artist.”

Early in Shapiro’s art career his works were characterized by their small size. His response to this feature was that “all works are about scale, and small size was an aspect of their scale.” Later works of his have an appearance of falling, being impossibly suspended in space, or defying gravity. These pieces seem to follow the same theme of suspense and aspects of control. During the time of this specific piece, Untitled (1980-81), Shapiro was very intrigued by the organization and formation of simple wooden rectangles. The theme of his works at this time in his career depict the wooden formations as human figures. He was captivated by “those moments when it appears that it is a figure and other moments when it looks like a bunch of wood stuck together – moments when it simultaneously configures and disfigures”.

Group intent

This piece by Shapiro presented a deeply tense feeling, a desire to know what happens next. All of the limbs of the character are all sprawled out, while being tilted towards the ground. It is inferred that the character is about to fall over into the sharps rocks, but that uncertainty is encapsulated by the sculpture.

The group made a stop motion video to present a fictional story about the origin of the Shapiro piece. The video is to demonstrate Shapiro’s themes of suspension and a lack of control, while the mannequin will represent a minimalist human that are familiar in other Shapiro pieces.The goal of the video was to replicate the message of Shapiro’s work. To capture a moment of “no control” and suspend it in time. There was a common sense of tension, uncertainty of the future or the impact of the fall, presented from this Untitled piece. The group wanted to create a narrative that captures this tense feeling that the audience may undergo from the piece.

Our Video

Credits

Lyn Nguyen – Writing

Tarah Pittman – photography

Spencer Wirtz – Editing

Resources

N.a (n.d.). Joel Shapiro – Selected Works | Paula Cooper Gallery. Paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved from https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/artists/joel-shapiro/selected-works

Pace Gallery (n.d.). Pace Gallery – Joel Shapiro. Pace Gallery. Retrieved from https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/434/joel-shapiro

Tate (n.d.). ‘Untitled’, Joel Shapiro, 1984 | Tate . Tate. Retrieved from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shapiro-untitled-t07154

The Brooklyn Rail (n.d.). Joel Shapiro with Phong Bui. The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved from https://brooklynrail.org/2007/11/art/joel-shapiro-with-phong-bui

The Museum of Modern Art (n.d.). Joel Shapiro. Untitled. 1980 | MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved from https://www.moma.org/collection/works/100316?artist_id=5373&locale=en&sov_referrer=artist

Shapiro, J., Newman, A., & Phelan, E. (1995). Joel Shapiro: painted wood sculpture and drawings. New York: PaceWildenstein.