Robert Grosvenor

Born 1973 in New York, New York
Lives and Works in Long Island, New York

For more than fifty years, Robert Grosvenor has been producing diverse and powerful abstract sculptures. Although his works may appear to be industrially fabricated, every contour is carefully crafted by hand. Grosvenor often forges relationships between two or more seemingly unrelated forms. In this work, for example, Grosvenor contrasts the surfaces of an aluminum screen and a bridgelike structure covered with a soft flocking. The aluminum element does not function as a barrier but offers a visual permeability: it is an object that can be looked at or through. Similarly, the shaped surface of the red structure, with its allusion to stone masonry, disguises the actual lightness of its construction. The negative space within each sculptural component—as well as the space between the two—results in an unusual tension. Grosvenor describes this sculpture as “two lines of poetry meeting, one in the foreground and one in the background.”


Read About the Artist

"Art in Review; Robert Grosvenor"
The New York Times (January 2003)

"Art in Review; Robert Grosvenor"
The New York Times (March 1996)

"Robert Grosvenor"
Artforum (January 1993)

A piece of red flock behind an aluminium net.
A piece of red flock behind an aluminium net.

Robert Grosvenor, Untitled, 2009. Fiberglass, flocking and aluminum, 48 × 48 × 192 in. (121.9 × 121.9 × 487.7 cm) (red unit); 48 × 312 × 1/2 in. (121.9 × 792.5 × 1.3 cm) (aluminum unit). Collection of the artist; courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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