1. Sarah “Ellie” Schafer
ARTHIST 1004
Final Project
“I was again supposed to be a pre-medical student. I mean this hadn't gone. And my
father was a very dominant kind of strong character and the idea of being an artist didn't seem
possible.” Joel Shapiro quoted this as he was being interview by Lewis Kachur for the Archives
of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (aaa.si.edu). It is hard to believe that Shapiro was
planning to go to school for pre-med but is now a famous international artist. Shapiro is famous
for all different kinds of art, including, wood, fingerprints, charcoal, pastels, wire, and chalk
(pacegallery.com). Shapiro has over 50 pieces of artwork but I am just going to focus on two of
his pieces that intrigue me the most. The two pieces are very different from each other, yet I
believe that they have similar meanings.
The first piece of art that really made me choose to research Shapiro, as an artist, was one
of his fingerprint works. Refer to figure one to see the piece of art. I found this piece of art to be
very appealing to the eye and interesting to look at. When looking at it from a distance, you are
not really sure what it is or what it is supposed to represent but when you look at it closer, you
start to make out the shapes of fingerprints. You start to realize that you are looking at hundreds
of tiny fingerprints lined up fashionably. You see that some of the fingerprints are really dark
and some are really light. Some of the fingerprints are a perfectly round shape and some are
unusual and not fully there. No matter what shape or color or size they are, they are made to
represent an identity. I believe that Shapiro wanted to represent identity in this piece of work
because it was sort of representing his life and to teach others about life. He was going to school
to become a doctor and thought that being an artist was impossible but then became one. If you
look at this piece of art from far away you cannot really make out what it is but then the closer
you get, you start to see the individual fingerprints. I think that these fingerprints represent each
individual person and how everyone is different from each other. Each fingerprint is representing
someone different and not them physically but them as a person and their beliefs and morals.
Phong Bui writes, “From the start Shapiro used his bare hands as tools to claim authorship, as in
Pollock’s or Johns’s works. This is evident in the fingerprint drawings, as well as the formed
spheres and rolled cylinders of clay—a primordial, pliable material—which are treated with
repetitive movements, where every mark and manipulation has knowingly recorded the imprints
of his palms and fingers” (brooklynrail.org). Bui talks about the repetitive movements that
Shapiro uses to create his artwork. I think that even as Shapiro is trying to make his actual
artwork represent a person’s life, he is trying to represent life as he makes it as well. Throughout
life, things happen over and over again for years and even day by day, people get up in the
morning, eat, and go to work, come home, and go to bed. In Shapiro’s fingerprint work, he is
trying to represent that each fingerprint is an individual and that each individual is different from
the next. No fingerprint or individual are going to be the same, but each of them do live a life and
go through the same things in life. Joel Shapiro’s fingerprint works are not his only works that
are made to represent identity and life.

2. The second piece of Joel Shapiro’s work that caught my eye was one of his big wooden
sculptures. Refer to figure two to see the sculpture. It caught my eye because it sort of looks like
a human being in an odd way. You can see that this piece of art has a block of wood holding
together other pieces to it. There are two longer pieces below the middle piece that look like legs,
two pieces sticking out to the side looking like arms, and one shorter piece on top of the middle
piece that looks like a head. Michael Amy writes, “Shapiro has spent many years examining the
severely geometricized three-dimensional human body in a state of imbalance. He showed us
how the poses and gestures of anonymous stick figures could convey a gamut of emotional
states, ranging from an explosive joie de vivre to utter despair. The reason we could project so
much meaning onto their awkward forms is that whatever the scale, they refer to our own bodies,
and like us, they inhabited and even seemed to move through actual space” (Barrett 138-139).
Amy writes this very well and I agree with everything that he says. Shapiro is showing his
audience that humans pose and make gestures to portray emotions. If someone is in a happy
mood they are more likely to be jumping for joy than someone who is in a bad mood and is in
the corner crying. Because Shapiro is making structures of humans out of wood they are going to
look awkward but in all reality every human is awkward in their own way. Steven Nash writes,
“Blocky shapes formed in wood and often cast in bronze are joined in upright, dynamic
compositions evocative of fragmented bodies caught in strenuous actions such as running,
stretching, dancing, or lifting” (Barrett 138). Nash is explaining how Shapiro’s artwork can
represent different types of people and what they are doing. Some of his art will show the actions
of running, stretching, dancing, or lifting. I think that the piece I chose to focus on looks as if it is
dancing ballet or stretching. Even though I think that Shapiro is trying to represent the piece of
work dancing or stretching, someone else could see it representing something different than what
I think. I think that Shapiro made his wooden structures and fingerprint art to let you think
deeply about what he is trying to represent but also allow your mind to wander and see what you
get out of it.
As I look at both of Shapiro’s pieces of art, I can only imagine that he is trying to portray
the meaning of identity. I think that in his wooden structures he is representing the body of a
human, itself, and it’s physical appearance but in his fingerprint art, he is representing the
attitude, beliefs, and morals of an individual. Shapiro writes, “I wanted to create a sculpture that
would be sympathetic to the architecture and the site. I wanted the sculpture to be large but not
overwhelming, enduring but not leaden, open and expansive but not monumental, complicated
but easy to read. You can see the sculpture as a joining of individual parts into a coherent and
unexpected whole. I wanted it to be animate and human---about growth and conjunction. I
wanted to work to use common language that all could understand. I wanted to be accessible and
moving: about the future, understood from common pasts. I wanted to make a sculpture that
would represent the close historical ties and relationship between our two nations” (Barrett 140).
When Shapiro says, “…complicated but easy to read…” I take that as, he really cares about what
his audience thinks of his work. He wants everyone to look at his work in different ways and find
it interesting. He does not want people to get frustrated when looking at his art, and he does not
want his art to be looked at as not useful. Along with his saying he wants his art to be
complicated but easy to read, he also says, “You can see the sculpture as a joining of individual
parts into a coherent and unexpected whole.” Even though he is referring to just one of his

3. wooden sculpture, this can related to both of the pieces I chose to focus on. This can relate to his
fingerprint art because when you first look at it, you do not really know what it is but then when
you look at it closer, you see each individual part joining together to make the whole piece of art.
This is sort of opposite of how he states it, but he really is trying to focus on showing his
audience, through his work, that it takes multiple individuals to make up a whole. You can also
relate this quote to his wooden pieces, specifically the one I chose to focus on, because you can
see each limb, the two legs, two arms, head, and body but then you take a step back and see the
whole that looks like a body. Joel Shapiro really cares about what his audience and viewers think
about his art and he designs his art to sort of be a lesson to everyone.
Joel Shapiro grew up moving around the world and around the United States. He went to
college and was majoring in biology when he decided to apply for the Peace Corps. He lived in
India and started to be more interested in art and less interested in being a med-student or
majoring in biology. He went back to New York, where he grew up, and started to create
artwork. His first art exhibit was in the late 1960s or early 1700s, he does not really remember
(bombmagazine.org). His most recent exhibition just ended on December 7, 2014. I find Joel
Shapiro to be an amazing artist and person. He impressed me from the first time I saw his
fingerprint art and continues to impress me due to the fact that he has been creating art for so
long and has such a passion for it. I am amazed that he was going to college to become a doctor
and then he changed his mind to want to be in the Peace Corps and then wanted to be an artist.
Not only does Joel Shapiro, himself, impress me, so does his art. The two pieces that I have
focused on and written about really make me appreciate art and artists more. I love that Shapiro
has a lesson behind his work. That lesson being that each piece of each of his pieces of art,
whether it be a fingerprint or piece of wood, represent an individual and the whole piece of art
represents life. The fingerprint work looks like a world full of different individuals and the
different limbs of the wooden structure make up individuals.
Joel Shapiro is an artist that can change how people look at the world. He has such a want
and love for what he does. He cares about what people think of him and his artwork in a very
professional way. No matter what medium he uses to create art, he will have a lesson behind
what he is making and someone will enjoy it. I am very happy that Joel Shapiro became an artist
and has created and continues to create pieces of art even though his father wanted him to be a
doctor.

4. Works Cited
Kachur, L. (1988, July 15). Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved December
14, 2014, from http://www.aaa.si.edu/
Barrett, T. (2008). Why is that art?: Aesthetics and criticism of contemporary art. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Pace Gallery. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2014, from http://www.pacegallery.com/
Bui, P. (2013, April 3). The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved December 14, 2014, from
http://www.brooklynrail.org/
Klein, M. (2009, October 1). Bomb. Retrieved December 14, 2014, from http://bombmagazine.org/

5. Figure 1
Figure 2