Joel Shapiro’s New Sculptures Radiate Joy and Defy Gravity

My favorite Joel Shapiro sculpture is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art – an orange dancer-like structure that has made me smile since the first day I arrived in New York, now 23 year ago. That sculpture, like most of his work for the last 50+ years is radiantly joyful, defies gravity, and seems to move as you walk around it.

3 large geometric sculptures in contemporary gallery

Joel Shapiro: Out of the Blue. 510 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10016 September 13 – October 26, 2024 \\\ Photo: Courtesy Pace Gallery

His current exhibition at Pace in New York, Joel Shapiro: Out of the Blue, is everything you want from a Shapiro with with new surprises. Presenting his largest wood sculpture to date, along with a dozen small studies and bronzes, it’s a playfully intelligent experience with color, space, material, and movement that keeps you circling.

Woman approaches 2 large geometric sculptures

Joel Shapiro: Out of the Blue. 510 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10016 September 13 – October 26, 2024 \\\ Photo: Courtesy Pace Gallery

The exhibition spans two rooms with generous space to experience all 360 degrees of each work. Debuting here are three new massive wood sculptures – each taller than any viewer. The central work, titled “ARK” (titles are rare for Shapiro who has long-preferred the “untitled”) is also the largest in the room, reaching nearly 12 feet tall. The structure feels like someone paused an implosion in space – as geometric shapes seem like they ignore our own gravity as they find their own central magnetism.

Large wood sculpture in red, blue and yellow.

Joel Shapiro, ARK, 2020 / 2023-2024, © Joel Shapiro \\\ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The three new works are an interesting shift from the two exhibitions of sculpture he presented in New York a decade ago (see them here: at Pace Gallery in 2010 and Paula Cooper Gallery in 2014) where he presented works suspended by a network of rope. Though it was undeniably thrilling to walk into the middle of a fully exploded Shapiro, the ropes also explained their “weightlessness.” However in this new work, and especially in ARK, the objection to gravity seems nearly impossible – it must be bound by physics, but it doesn’t look like it.

Room of pedestals with small geometric sculptures

Joel Shapiro: Out of the Blue. 510 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10016 September 13 – October 26, 2024 \\\ Photo: Courtesy Pace Gallery

Small abstract sculpture with central vertical element

Joel Shapiro, untitled, 2004. © Joel Shapiro \\\ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

But the real treat is in the second room where a dozen small studies and bronzes pack nothing but gleeful wonder. My favorite works are the colorful wood structures that reveal their making with an abundance of visible nails, rods, or screws. It’s as if you’re witnessing the works’ creation, when Shapiro suspends an element in space and rapidly secures it with multiple shots from a pin gun.

Four white pedestals with small geometric artworks

Joel Shapiro: Out of the Blue. 510 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10016 September 13 – October 26, 2024 \\\ Photo: Courtesy Pace Gallery

A stand out is “untitled (structural study for 20 Elements)” (below) – a study for the artist’s large-scale work of a similar title that was once shown in brilliant juxtaposition at the Musée d’Orsay. Again, the screws have a sense that they’re holding the pieces down rather than up, preventing elements from floating away.

Joel Shapiro, untitled (structural study for 20 Elements), 2004-05. © Joel Shapiro \\\ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Humanoid sculpture from cut pieces of wood.

Wood sculpture with suspended elements using wire

Bronze abstract geometric sculpture on white pedistal

The work is on view at Pace through October 26th, 2024 and well worth viewing from every possible angle. In the meantime, the gallery produced this exceptional 3-minute interview with Shapiro inside his Queens studio. Made last year on the occasion of his exhibition in Hong Kong, Shapiro talks about his process, color, and feelings about “perfection.”