Photos By Gail

Before his passing in 2025, Joel Shapiro spent decades redefining what abstract sculpture could be. His monumental work Ark stands as a powerful example of that vision. At first glance, the sculpture appears to have been frozen in the middle of an explosion. Bold planes of red, blue, and yellow thrust outward at unexpected angles, balancing in a way that seems to defy gravity. Installed directly on the floor rather than elevated on a pedestal, the work encourages viewers to circle it and experience its constantly shifting presence. Depending on where you stand, it can suggest a vessel in motion, a collapsing structure, a child’s stack of oversized blocks, or even a figure striding through space.

Created between 2020 and 2024, Ark is among the final major works Shapiro completed before his death in 2025. Measuring nearly 12 feet high and almost 19 feet wide, the sculpture is constructed from painted wood coated in casein, a milk-based paint prized for its rich, velvety matte finish. Although built from simple geometric forms, the piece reflects Shapiro’s lifelong fascination with balance, movement, and the emotional potential of abstraction.

The title adds another layer of meaning. An ark can evoke protection, survival, migration, or a journey into the unknown, yet Shapiro deliberately leaves room for viewers to arrive at their own interpretations. Massive elements appear precariously poised, creating a tension between instability and permanence, even as the sculpture remains perfectly composed.

Ark feels both playful and profound. Through color, scale, and daring composition, Shapiro transforms rigid geometry into something unexpectedly alive and deeply human. As one of the artist’s last works, it also carries a quiet sense of culmination — a fitting reminder of a career devoted to finding motion, emotion, and possibility within forms that never stop surprising us.

Photographed in The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.