{"data":{"id":"1204","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":1204,"topgoose_id":598,"tms_id":1204,"display_name":"Joel Shapiro","sort_name":"Shapiro Joel","display_date":"1941–2025","begin_date":"1941","end_date":"2025","biography":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Joel Shapiro began showing\nhis sculptures in the 1970s, they bucked\nprevailing trends: they were small rather\nthan large in scale; figurative rather\nthan abstract; compositionally condensed,\nsolid, and deliberate rather than variable,\nopen-field, and contingent; and classic\nrather than experimental in material.\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/1018\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eUntitled\n(House on Field)\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e belongs to a body of\ndiminutive bronze, iron, plaster, and wood\nsculptures he made of simple geometric\nforms such as chairs, tables, houses,\nand ladders. Usually placed directly on the\nfloor, sometimes positioned teetering\non their sides as if knocked over, these are\ntouchingly vulnerable sculptures.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eUntitled (House on Field)\u003c/em\u003e the\nfeatureless house is fused to a surrounding\nbronze plane and placed atop a raised\nwooden pedestal, yet the remoteness\nand unapproachability of this structure, set\nwithin a seemingly vast field, speaks\nwith just as much pathos as its floor-bound\ncounterparts. Home registers both as\na formal, architectural notation and as the\nlocus of emotional projections and\ninstitutional formations, particularly those\nconcerned with memories of childhood.\nAs Shapiro explained: “This house is\nnot engaged so much with the space that\nit actually occupies, but functions in a\nmuch more psychologically determined\nspace instead. It is removed. It is very\nsentimental. It gives a real sense of isolation.”\nThe replicative method of casting serves\nto further underscore the theme of memory.\nFollowing these early works, which\nstressed the interaction between an interior,\nassociative, and imaginative space and\nthe real space a sculpture occupies,\nShapiro increasingly focused on the latter\nwith running, tumbling, and gesticulating\nstick figures composed of conjoining\ncubic rectangles.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500118704","wikidata_id":"Q461178","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:44:36.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-10T07:00:37.397-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/1204/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/1204/exhibitions"}}}}