Untitled

Joel Shapiro

(1980)

A two-sheet work painted with synthetic polymer on paper in which the artist reduces form to a single, irregular black silhouette that seeks to translate sculptural weight and gesture into a flat image.

What strikes you is the immense, absorbent black spreading across the joined papers—its ragged edges and the thin horizontal seam that bisects the mass give the shape an almost bodily presence against the white ground.

By treating paint as mass and paper as a stage for a solitary silhouette, the work bridges drawing and sculpture and furthers late-20th-century experiments in condensed, bodily abstraction and the expressive power of negative space.

Palette

Exhibitions

Works from Change, Inc.

1974

Handmade Paper Prints and Unique Works

1976

American Prints, 1960–1985

1987

Prints by Sculptors

1975