Joel Shapiro: Pace Gallery

Colossal forms made intimate – such is the art of sculptor Joel Shapiro, whose work graces dozens of public sites around the world. Working since the early 1960s, New Yorker Shapiro has quietly established himself as a leading exponent of monumental abstraction, sculptures especially at one with modernist architecture, after more than half a century still the dominant international style.

Initially, Shapiro created smaller pieces, but as his vision matured, so his art grew in scale and ambition. He began to experiment with imbalance, fashioning ever larger works which increasingly appeared to totter, lean, seemingly collapsing but frozen in time at the moment of their disintegration. Hence, his sculptures are dynamic rather than static, gravity succumbing rather than gravity defying. The works were expressing, he once said, ‘an emotional state, my own longing or desire’.

This month, Pace London inaugurates its first exhibition of works by Shapiro. The current exhibition – presented through Pace's main gallery and an adjacent space at 6 Burlington Gardens – features an installation of seven sculptures in vivid colours, some floor-bound, others suspended mid-air, as well as recent works on paper.

This body of work explores Shapiro’s longstanding investigation of anthropomorphic and architectonic form while challenging the viewer’s sense of balance and scale – Shapiro has re-configured many of the larger sculptures specifically for this exhibition at Pace London.

Only on for a month, don't miss the chance to see new art by a creative spirit who has helped fashion our vision of public art for the past two generations.