Artist, Joel Shapiro: This was one of the first, if not the first large life-size sculpture that I made that had a figurative reference. And as I recall, I was feeling very elated that day, and I grabbed a bunch of four by fours. Lumber that you would buy in a lumber yard and using a hammer nails sort of put it together. It was six elements that I joined together with a hammer whacked them together with glue until I found a configuration that was indeed a figure, but it also referred equally as much to the material that it was made from.
So you would always know that this was a piece of bought lumber. And I think it's, its familiarity which is engaging. So ordinariness was important to me. The piece would collapse if it wasn't anchored into the ground. You know, that in itself is really about turning the inanimate into something anate, that kind of insistence on imbalance and the willingness to use devices to hold it up.
So, I mean, it has all sorts of notions of frailty and vulnerability and assertion. You respond to it in relationship to your body. I'm interested in finding meaning in the work. Any place I can, you know, that seems significant to me. I would like to think, you know, that if somebody looks at a piece that you know, they do have some real sense of whether the artist is enraged, elated, whatever.
I think. That's why we find art interesting or engaging or necessary because I think it is this real means of communicating. Elation is much more difficult than anger. I'll tell you, it seems to me
Narrator: To hear why Joel Shapiro chose not to title this work. Press 2, 2, 2, 1.