Joel Shapiro, a renowned Post-Minimalist sculptor, died on Saturday at the age of 83. His daughter, Ivy Shapiro, confirmed that he passed away in a Manhattan hospital due to acute myeloid leukemia. Shapiro was best known for his vibrant, isomorphic statues that blurred the lines between abstraction and figuration.
His humanoid forms, assembled from wood beams, appeared ready to move or topple at any moment. Born in Queens, New York, in 1941, Shapiro initially pursued medicine at New York University. However, after serving in the Peace Corps in India for two years, he returned to New York City in 1967 with a new perspective on the prevalent Minimalist art scene.
Shapiro’s breakthrough came in 1969 with his “fingerprint drawings,” expansive works on paper covered in repetitive rows of his inky fingerprints. These drawings caught the attention of gallerist Paula Cooper, and his career took off after a group show at her Soho gallery. Throughout his career, Shapiro aimed to infuse his works with deeper experiences and emotions, contrasting his approach with that of contemporaries like Donald Judd.
Post-Minimalist legacy of Joel Shapiro
In the 1970s, he gained recognition for his small cast-iron house sculptures, which subverted traditional sculpture conventions. Shapiro’s mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1982, followed by exhibitions at various prestigious institutions, further cemented his legacy.
His works have been displayed in notable solo exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others. Over his lifetime, Shapiro completed more than 30 public installations, including the renowned 1993 piece “Loss and Regeneration” at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. This somber installation features a figure seemingly frozen mid-fall and an upended house, commenting on the human toll of geopolitical cruelty.
Shapiro’s most recent solo exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York in 2024 featured “Untitled” (2020/2023-24), a dynamic arrangement of wooden beams in the shape of a moving ship, which was subsequently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Reflecting on his career, Shapiro described his work and legacy with humility and clarity: “Chronologically, I would be a Post-Minimalist, but I think all those categories are relatively meaningless. Art begets art.
It’s a big long discourse,” he said in a 2020 interview. Joel Shapiro leaves behind a rich legacy of sculptural innovation and artistic exploration, remembered as a thoughtful, outspoken, and pioneering figure in contemporary art.
