In Joel Shapiro’s influential exhibitions at Paula Cooper Gallery in the 1970s, diminutive sculptures in cast iron and bronze sat directly on the floor or mounted on the wall, enlarging the surrounding space with subtle manipulations of scale. The work was condensed, austere and psychologically potent, embracing narrative with latent figuration. The current exhibition at 521 West 21st Street revisits this important period in Shapiro’s career with a concise presentation of works from 1971 to 1980 in bronze, cast iron and wood, and charcoal or gouache on paper. A tribute to an endlessly engaging and dynamic artist, this will be the gallery’s twenty-second one-person exhibition of Shapiro’s work.

In 1982, Roberta Smith succinctly described the progression of Shapiro’s work in the 1970s: “Shapiro started from scratch with sculpture, working from rudimentary, innately elegant treatments of material, weight, horizontality, and gesture, towards structure, space and then image, as if he were working down a list.”[1] This trajectory was marked by distinct forms and motifs such as the house, the shelf, and the void, and works that combined these ideas. Providing a compact metaphor for Shapiro’s past, the singular house appeared in various guises: extended and placed on a shelf (Untitled, 1973–74); chopped in half (Untitled, 1975); and set loose, spinning and shattering in an ode to Giacometti (Untitled, 1975–77).

An assertive vulnerability underscores the economy of Shapiro’s vision in works like Chasm (1976), in which two walls partially enclose a black void, and Untitled (1978) a shelf with a hollow shaft in the place of a bracket. Shapiro’s works on paper from this period also investigate negative space on an unexpected scale. Powerful drawings in thick black charcoal use a linear structure to enclose layers of space (Untitled, 1976) while an enormous expanse of deep red gouache dwarfs and envelopes the viewer (Untitled, 1979). Shapiro arrived at the characteristic disjointed figure for which he is best known by 1980, seamlessly transitioning from a house with planes expanding from either side to a torso with outstretched arms (Untitled, 1980).

A single, large-scale sculpture from 1988 will be installed in the gallery vitrine. Two cuboid forms in Alaskan cedar are balanced precariously on steel poles, their jaunty angles suggesting a lightness that contradicts their inherent weight.

[1] Roberta Smith in Joel Shapiro, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1982), p. 15