JOEL SHAPIRO
MUSEUM LUDWIG
Cologne, Germany
February 26 – September 25, 2011

NEW YORK, March 3, 2011—A major new installation by Joel Shapiro opened at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany on February 26, where it will be on view through September 25, 2011. The fifteen vibrantly painted wooden elements suspended from the ceiling, wall, and floor energize and enliven the monumental forty-three foot tall gallery. The installation, Shapiro explains, is an investigation of the “expressive possibility of form and color in space.” The polyphonic nature of the sculpture is determined by the interactive dynamic between the viewer and the elements. The sculpture addresses the possibility and nature of narrative and history through an exploration of scale and the interaction of color.

Shapiro began working with wire and painted wood a decade ago, using the filament as a means of organizing form in hanging clusters. In the new work Shapiro says he “pulled the clusters apart,” immersing the viewer within the dialogue between architecture and form. The installation expands upon the artist’s 2010 exhibition at The Pace Gallery, which featured five distinct configurations of painted wood elements. Shapiro’s new body of work is both a radical departure from and an evolution of the abstract sculpture for which he is known.

A hardcover catalogue (published by Strzelecki Books) with installation views and essays written by Dr. Julia Friedrich, Curator at the Museum Ludwig, and Dr. Richard Shiff, Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art and Director of the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas at Austin, accompanies the exhibition.

Joel Shapiro (born 1941, New York City) is an artist of international prominence whose work is held in nearly 100 public collections worldwide. The artist has executed more than thirty commissions and publicly sited sculptures in major Asian, European and North American cities and has been the subject of more than 160 solo exhibitions and retrospectives internationally. This will be Shapiro’s sixth museum exhibition in Germany; earlier exhibitions include: Joel Shapiro: Skulpturen 1993–1997 at Haus der Kunst, Munich, which traveled to Barlach HALLE K, Hamburg (1997-1998); Joel Shapiro organized by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1985), which traveled to Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf and Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden through 1986; and Joel Shapiro: Sculpture and Drawing at Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld (1980), which was also on view at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

Other important exhibitions devoted to Shapiro’s work include Correspondances: Joel Shapiro/Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux in 2005, a series at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris to present the museum’s collection through the eyes of contemporary artists; a solo exhibition on The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2001); Joel Shapiro: Sculpture at the Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston, which then traveled to the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio and Denver Art Museum (2000–01); Joel Shapiro: Outdoors, the first major outdoor exhibition of the artist’s bronzes (1995–96), co-organized by Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Joel Shapiro: Roma organized by the American Academy in Rome in 1999, which featured an installation of Shapiro’s smaller works at the Academy and larger works installed in public spaces throughout the city; Joel Shapiro organized by IVAM Centro Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain that later traveled to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, Kunsthalle Zürich and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Calais, France (1990–91); and a major mid-career survey organized by The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York with subsequent venues at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (1982–84). Shapiro has also been included in numerous significant group exhibitions, including the prestigious Whitney Biennial (‘77, ‘79, ‘81, ‘89), Documenta (‘77, ‘82), and the Venice Biennale (1980). Shapiro was elected to the Swedish Royal Academy of Art in 1994 and to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998. In 2005, he received the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France.

Shapiro discusses the installation at the Ludwig Museum in a video here: http://www.vimeo.com/20169214.

For more information about Joel Shapiro at the Ludwig Museum, please contact the Public Relations department of The Pace Gallery at 212.421.8987. For general inquiries, please email [email protected]; for reproduction requests, email [email protected].