Joel Shapiro Installation Opens at Rice Gallery

Texas’ beloved New York artist Joel Shapiro opens in solo exhibition at the Rice University Gallery today, February 2, 2012. The show exhibits through March 18.

“In a gravity-defying array of color and form, Shapiro will suspend wooden planks, vibrantly painted with supersaturated pigment, from the gallery’s sixteen-foot ceiling,” according the University’s website.  Shapiro adds, “I feel like I’ve been working for so long to have finally built up this moment of discovery that I can get the work off the floor and be more playful in the air.”

Installation Museum Ludwig Cologne 2011 Photo: Lothar Schnepf

Shapiro is part of both the Menil Collection in Houston and the Nasher Collection in Dallas. As well, the artist is represented in collections throughout the world.

Time-lapse photography captures the effects of 12 hours of changing daylight on Shapiro’s 4 Elements (2003), a work installed in the Skyroom at L.A. Louver in Venice, California, as part of the exhibition Recent Sculpture (2004). Courtesy L.A. Louver.