Robert_Irwin_(artist)
Robert_Irwin_(artist)
Robert_Irwin_(artist)
Beginnings
Robert Walter Irwin was born on September 12, 1928, in Long Beach, California, to Robert Irwin and
Goldie Anderberg Irwin.[2] He grew up in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles, and graduated from
Dorsey High School.[2] After serving in the United States Army from 1946 to 1947, he attended several
art institutes: Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1948 to 1950, Jepson Art Institute in 1951, and
Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1952 to 1954. He spent the next two years living in Europe
and North Africa. Between the years 1957–1958, he taught at the Chouinard Art Institute.
Work
In 1977, Robert Irwin wrote the following about himself: "I began
as a painter in the middle of nowhere with few questions...My first
real question concerned the arbitrariness of my paintings… I used
my paintings as a step-by-step process, each new series of works
acting in direct response to those questions raised by the previous
series. I first questioned the mark as meaning and then even as
focus; I then questioned the frame as containment, the edge as the
beginning and end of what I see...consider the possibility that
nothing ever really transcends its immediate environment...I tried "Two Running Violet V Forms" —
site-specific sculpture by artist
to respond directly to the quality of each situation I was in, not to
Robert Irwin. Located in the
change it wholesale into a new or ideal environment, but to attend
eucalyptus grove behind the Faculty
directly to the nature of how it already was. How is it that a space Club at the University of California,
could ever come to be considered empty when it is filled with real San Diego, part of the campus'
and tactile events?" (Robert Irwin, 1977) Irwin's notion of art Stuart Collection of site-specific
derived from a series of experiential perceptions. As an abstract, outdoor sculptures.
open-minded thinker, he presented experience first as perception
or sense. He concluded that a sense of knowing, or ability to
identify, helped to clarify perception. For example,
"We know the sky's blueness even before we know it as "blue", let alone as "sky."
Irwin explained later that the conception of an abstract thought occurs in the mind, through the concept of
self. Following, the physical form is then recognized, communicating the form to the community. Then,
the Objective compound occurs, delineating behavioral norms and artistic norms, becoming identifiable.
Then the boundaries and axioms introduce logic and reasoning and decisions can be made: either
inductive or deductive. Formalism follows, proving and convincing a decision about the object being
perceived. The study done by Irwin suggested that: "…all ideas and values have their roots in
experience,… they can be held separate at any point and developed directly on the grounds of function
and use, both that they in fact remain relative to the condition of both our subjective and objective being."
Irwin's philosophy defined his idea of art as a series of aesthetic inquiries, an opportunity for cultural
innovation, a communicative interaction with society, and as compounded historical development.
In his book Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, Lawrence Weschler documents Irwin's
process from his early days as a youngster in Southern California to his emergence as a leader in the post-
abstraction art world. Weschler describes the mystifying and often enchanting quality of these works in
his book's cover notes:
"In May 1980, Robert Irwin returned to Market Street in Venice, California to the block
where he had kept a studio until 1970, the year he abandoned studio work altogether.
Melinda Wyatt was opening a gallery in the building next door to his former work space
and invited Irwin to create an installation."
"He cleaned out the large rectangular room, adjusted the skylights, painted the walls an
even white, and then knocked out the wall facing the street, replacing it with a sheer,
semi-transparent white scrim. The room seemed to change its aspect with the passing
day: people came and sat on the opposite curb, watching, sometimes for hours at time."
"The piece was up for two weeks in one of the more derelict beachfront neighborhoods of
Los Angeles: no one so much as laid a hand on it."
Because of the ephemeral or subtle nature of his work, this book became not just an introduction but, for
many artists and art students, the primary way that Irwin's work was experienced. He told Jori Finkel of
the New York Times in 2007 that people still came up to him at lectures for book autographs. In that
article, Michael Govan, the director of LACMA who had previously commissioned Irwin to "design our
experience" of Dia:Beacon said he believes the book "has convinced more young people to become
artists than the Velvet Underground has created rockers."[3]
Painting
Irwin's early work began with painting. In 1959, he painted a series of hand-held objects and exhibited for
the second time, as an individual exhibitor, at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. The following year,
1960, he was asked to exhibit there again as well as at the Pasadena Art Museum. By this time, he began
a continuous series of experiments. In 1962, he began teaching at the University of California, Los
Angeles and exhibited at the Ferus Gallery again. That year, he began his line paintings. He exhibited at
the Ferus Gallery in 1964 and presented a different study, his dot paintings.
Between 1966 and 1967, he began painting aluminum discs. He was invited back as an individual
exhibitor to The Pace Gallery in New York City. In 1968, he began teaching at the University of
California, Irvine. For the next two years, he started his work with clear acrylic discs, white convex
structures fixed to the wall and illuminated by lamps.[4] In 1970, he began his work on "Columns", a
series of clear acrylic columns. In 1972, he began his study on "sightlines" and "places" in the Southwest.
Light works
Irwin first used fluorescent light in the 1970s.[5] His site-conditioned installation Excursus: Homage to
the Square3, a meditation on the painter Josef Albers and his explorations of color relationships,[6] was
presented at Dia:Chelsea between 1998 and 2000. It consists of 18 small rooms, divided by walls of
tautly stretched scrim; the light in each room, its value depending on the distance from the windows, is
enhanced by four white-and-colored double fluorescent bulbs, each hung vertically at the center of each
wall.[6] In 2015, it was reinstalled at Dia:Beacon where it was on view through 2017.[5] For a 2015
exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York City, Irwin installed rows of columnar lights, coating the different
tubes with colored gels that alter the transmission of light.[5]
His later exhibitions included: Unlights at Kayne Griffin in Los Angeles, January 9 – February 27, 2021
and Light and Space commissioned by Light Art Space (LAS) and displayed at Kraftwerk Berlin from
December 5, 2021 to January 30, 2022.[7][8]
"Irwin's new works are composed from unlit six-foot fluorescent lights mounted to fixtures
and installed in vertical rows directly on the wall. The glass tubes are covered in layers of
opulently colored translucent gels and thin strips of electrical tape, allowing the reflective
surfaces of unlit glass and anodized aluminum to interact with ambient illumination in the
surrounding space and produce shifting patterns of shadow and chromatic tonality. Reflecting
his recent turn toward the perceptual possibilities of unlit bulbs, Irwin's new body of work
expands the range of possibilities for how we experience sensations of rhythm, pulsation,
expansion and intensity, while continuing the artist's long-standing interest in registering the
immediacy of our own presence in space."[7]
Installations
From 1968[9] Irwin focused on the site itself by creating installations in rooms, gardens, parks, museums,
and various urban locales.[10] Influenced, in particular, by the paintings of John McLaughlin, Irwin and
other Light and Space artists became curious about pushing the boundaries of art and perception, in the
1970s Irwin left studio work to pursue installation art that dealt directly with light and space: the basis of
visual perception, in both outdoor and modified interior sites. These installations allowed for an open
exploration for artist and viewer of an altered experience created by manipulating the context of
environment rather than remaining with the confines of an individual work of art. Other artists involved
in the Light and Space movement include John McCracken, James Turrell, Peter Alexander, Larry Bell,
Craig Kauffman, Doug Wheeler, and Maria Nordman.
In 1970, the Museum of Modern Art invited Irwin to create an installation. Using the entire project space,
Irwin suspended a white scrim 10 feet from the ground and attached shimmering stainless steel wires to
the wall. In 1971 the Walker Art Center commissioned the artist to create Untitled (Slant/Light/Volume)
for the inaugural exhibition of its Edward Larrabee Barnes-designed building.[11] Suspended between the
floor and ceiling, his Full Room Skylight - Scrim V (1972/2022) comprises two sheets of translucent
fabric stretched in a “V” shape across two connected galleries; from overhead, the fabric is illuminated by
abundant natural light beaming through the skylights, both concealing and revealing the surrounding
architecture depending on variables such as brightness, time of day, and the viewer's vantage point.[12]
For Soft Wall, a 1974 installation at Pace Gallery in New York City, Irwin simply cleaned and painted a
rectangular gallery and hung a thin, translucent white theater scrim eighteen inches in front of one of the
long walls, creating the effect of an empty room in which one wall seemed permanently out of focus.[13]
Other installations by Irwin included; Fractured Light – Partial Scrim – Eye Level at the Museum of
Modern Art, New York (1970–1971); Black Line Room Division + Extended Forms at the Whitney
Museum, New York (1977); 48 Shadow Planes at the Old Post Office Pavilion, Washington, D.C. (1983);
Ascending at the Musee d' Art Moderne de Ville, Paris, France (1994); and Double Diamond at the Musée
d'Art Contemporain, Lyon, France (1997–1998).[21]
Landscape projects
Irwin moved on to landscape projects after developing a stylistic move towards experiential space,
projecting what he learned about line, color, and most of all, light onto the built environment. From 1975
forward, Irwin conceived of fifty-five site projects. 9 Spaces 9 Trees (1980–3) originally was
commissioned in 1980 for the rooftop of the Public Safety Building by the Seattle Arts Commission; it
was re-imagined in 2007 and situated on campus at the University of Washington. Irwin's Filigreed Line
(1979) made for Wellesley College in Massachusetts, consists of a stainless steel line, running along a
ridge of grass near a lake, in which a pattern of leaflike forms is cut. His 1983 work Two Running Violet V
Forms (http://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artist/irwin.html), two crossing blue-violet, plastic coated wire
fences fixed with high poles, is featured as part of the Stuart Collection of public artwork on the campus
of the University of California, San Diego. For Sentinel Plaza (1990) in the Pasadena Civic Center
District, Irwin chose small desert plants and cacti. He later consulted on the master plan for Dia:Beacon,
creating, in particular, the design and landscaping of the outdoor spaces, and the entrance building and the
window design.[22]
Irwin later designed and developed the Central Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, built in 1997.
In the Central Garden, Irwin's concept of integrating experiential relationships to the built environment is
abundantly clear. Those experiential elements fill the space. This project is widely praised for its design
and flow. The 134,000-square-foot (12,400 m2) design features a natural ravine and tree-lined walkway
that leads the visitor through an experience of sights, sounds, and scents. He selected everything in the
garden to accentuate the interplay of light, color, and reflection. Planning began in 1992, as a key part of
the Getty Center project. Since the Center opened in 1997, the Central Garden has evolved as its plants
have grown. Irwin's statement, "Always changing, never twice the same," is carved into the plaza floor,
reminding visitors of the ever-changing nature of this living work of art. To the artist's dismay, a 1950s
Fernand Léger sculpture was placed on the garden's plaza.[23]
Irwin later completed the second phase of the installation of a primordial Palm Garden at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art which began in 2007.[24] The Palm Garden is arranged in a "T" shape with the
east–west axis running between and around, both the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the Resnick
Pavilion. The north–south axis terminates with a grid of date palms serving as a counterpoint to artist
Chris Burden's Urban Light installation. Irwin was long intrigued with how palm trees capture and reflect
Southern California light; designing the Palm Garden provided Irwin with an opportunity to work with
both the phenomenal and cultural perceptions of palms. Individual species of palms are planted in Cor-
Ten boxes, modern and formalized versions of common wood nursery boxes. The sculptural containers
make reference to the pedestal bases traditionally signifying art objects. Irwin's use of palm trees
considers the ubiquitous and iconic connection between the palm tree and images of Los Angeles.[25]
Exhibitions
Irwin first exhibited paintings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1957. The exhibit was called
"Artists of Los Angeles and Vicinity." The same year, he participated in the 57th Annual Exhibition of the
Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. That same year, he had his first individual exhibition at
the Felix Landau Gallery in Los Angeles.
In 1965, he participated in an exhibition called The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York and at another called XIII in Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil. In 1966, he exhibited both as an individual
and with Kenneth Price at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and as an individual exhibitor later at
The Pace Gallery in New York City. In 1969, Irwin exhibited with Doug Wheeler at the Fort Worth Art
Center in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1970, he first exhibited scrim "volumes" at the Museum of Modern Art in
New York. For the next five years, he exhibited individually at the following locations: the Pace Gallery
in New York City, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Minuzo and Ace Galleries in Los Angeles,
the Fogg Art Museum on the Harvard University Campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wright State
University in Dayton, Ohio, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Fort Worth Art Center, and
Palomar College in San Marcos, California. He participated in several joint exhibitions: "Transparency,
Reflection, Light, Space: Four Artists" at the UCLA Art Gallery in Los Angeles and "Some Recent
American Art" at the Museum of Modern Art exhibition for Australia. He also exhibited internationally:
"Kompas IV" at Stedelijk Museum in Eindhoven, with other artists (Larry Bell and Doug Wheeler), at the
Tate Gallery in London, and Documenta in Kassel in Germany.
In 1993, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles mounted the first comprehensive retrospective
of Irwin's career; the exhibition later traveled to the Kölnischer Kunstverein, the Musée d'Art Moderne de
la Ville de Paris, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.[26] In 2008, the Museum of
Contemporary Art San Diego presented another comprehensive retrospective spanning fifty years of
Irwin's career.
Recognition
Irwin was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, making him the first artist to receive the five-year
fellowship, which lasted until 1989. He was also the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
(1976), the Chaloner award, the James D. Phelan award (1954), and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation
medal in architecture awarded by the University of Virginia School of Architecture (2009). He held
Honorary Doctorates from the San Francisco Art Institute (1978) and the Otis College of Art and Design
(1992). Irwin was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2007. That same
year he had a residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.[27]
Collections
Irwin's work is held in more than 30 public collections worldwide, including the Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of
Contemporary Art San Diego; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid,
Spain; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Albright-Knox
Art Gallery, Buffalo; and the Dia Art Foundation, New York.[5]
See also
Nine Spaces Nine Trees, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
References
1. "MacArthur Foundation" (https://www.macfound.org/fellows/201/). www.macfound.org.
Retrieved July 22, 2018.
2. Finkel, Jori (October 25, 2023). "Robert Irwin, Artist of Fleeting Light and Space, Is Dead at
95" (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/arts/robert-irwin-dead.html?). The New York
Times. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20231025230947/https://www.nytimes.com/20
23/10/25/arts/robert-irwin-dead.html?) from the original on October 25, 2023. Retrieved
October 25, 2023.
3. Jori Finkel (October 24, 2007), "Artist of Space, Light, and Now Trees" (https://www.nytimes.
com/2007/10/14/arts/design/14fink.html) New York Times.
4. Robert Irwin: Untitled, 1968–69 (http://www.moca.org/pc/viewArtWork.php?id=26) Museum
of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles.
5. Robert Irwin: Cacophonous, April 10, 2015 – May 9, 2015 (http://www.pacegallery.com/newy
ork/exhibitions/12736/cacophonous) Pace Gallery, New York.
6. Grace Glueck (November 13, 1998), On a Journey Through a Maze, Contemplating Light
and Color (https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/13/arts/art-review-on-a-journey-through-a-maz
e-contemplating-light-and-color.html) New York Times.
7. "Robert Irwin – Unlights – Exhibitions – Kayne Griffin" (https://www.kaynegriffin.com/exhibiti
ons/robert-irwin/press-release). www.kaynegriffin.com. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
8. "Stop Making Sense" (https://www.spikeartmagazine.com/?q=articles/light-art-space-robert-i
rwin). Spike Art Magazine. December 6, 2021. Retrieved April 21, 2022.
9. Robert Irwin (http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=2828) MoMA Collection,
New York.
10. "Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated): Art from 1951 to the Present", March 5 – May 19,
2004 (http://pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/singular_forms/highlights_7a.html) Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York.
11. Robert Irwin: Slant/Light/Value, August 6, 2009 – February 28, 2010 (http://visualarts.walker
art.org/detail.wac?id=4671&title=past%20exhibitions) Walker Art Center.
12. Henri Neuendorf (2 September 2022), Robert Irwin’s 1972 Fogg Museum scrim installation
revived in its 'ideal location' at Dia Beacon (https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/09/02/ro
bert-irwin-fogg-museum-installation-revived-dia-beacon) The Art Newspaper.
13. Robert Irwin (http://www.diabeacon.org/exhibitions/introduction/84) Archived (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20120510061441/http://www.diabeacon.org/exhibitions/introduction/84) May
10, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Dia:Beacon.
14. Robert Irwin: Untitled, 1980 (http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/Irwin_Untitled.htm) Allen
Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin.
15. Jori Finkel (October 14, 2007), Artist of Light, Space and, Now, Trees (https://www.nytimes.c
om/2007/10/14/arts/design/14fink.html) New York Times.
16. Robert Irwin: Light and Space III, 2008 (http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/artwork/li
ght-and-space-iii-irwin-robert) Indianapolis Museum of Art.
17. Robert Irwin – Dotting the i's & Crossing the t's: Part II, September 6 – October 20, 2012 (htt
p://www.pacegallery.com/newyork/exhibitions/11146/robert-irwin-dotting-the-i-s-crossing-the
-t-s-part-ii) Pace Gallery, New York.
18. Carol Kino (December 31, 2015), The Artist's Artist: Robert Irwin Continues to Create and
Inspire (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-artists-artist-robert-irwin-continues-to-create-and-in
spire-1451572502?mod=e2fb) WSJ. Magazine.
19. Carol Vogel (September 18, 2014), Christie's to Sell Works From Twombly's Collection (http
s://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/arts/design/christies-to-sell-works-from-twomblys-collectio
n.html) New York Times.
20. Jessica Gelt (September 18, 2014), Robert Irwin to create a major installation in Marfa,
Texas (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-robert-irwin-to-create-maj
or-new-installation-in-marfa-texas-20140918-story.html) Los Angeles Times.
21. Robert Irwin (http://quintgallery.com/robert-irwin) Quint Gallery, San Diego.
22. Robert Irwin (http://www.diacenter.org/exhibitions/artistbio/84) Dia Art Foundation.
23. Paula Panich (July 24, 2008), Robert Irwin still marvels at Getty gardens 10 years later (htt
p://www.latimes.com/features/la-hm-irwin24-2008jul24,0,4278104.story) Los Angeles Times.
24. Robert Irwin: Way Out West, November 12, 2010—January 29, 2011 (http://www.artinfo.co
m/galleryguide/11546/31/126619/the-pace-gallery-57th-street/exhibition/robert-irwin-way-out
-west/press_release/) ARTINFO.
25. Zell, Jennifer (January 2011). "Between Fronds" (https://archive.today/20120707114636/htt
p://archives.asla.org/lamag/lam11/january/feature1.html). Landscape Architecture. 101 (1):
86–97. Archived from the original (http://archives.asla.org/lamag/lam11/january/feature1.htm
l) on July 7, 2012.
26. Robert Irwin, June 20 – August 15, 1993 (http://www.moca.org/library/archive/exhibition/deta
il/1993/irwin) Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles.
27. Robert Irwin: Light and Space, 2007 (http://www.mcasd.org/collection/artist/robert+irwin/light
+and+space) Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
General sources
Lawrence Weschler. Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees. University of
California Press; 1982.
Irwin, Robert, Hugh Marlais Davies, and Leonard Feinstein. Robert Irwin: Primaries and
Secondaries. San Diego, CA: Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 2008. Print.
Shiyan LI, "Robert Irwin : Du raku à l'ouverture au monde"(p. 161-212) in Le vide dans l'art
du XXe siècle : Occident/Extrême-Orient (The Emptiness in the Art of the 20th Century :
West – Far East), Presses Universitaires de Provence, France, Collection : Histoire, théorie
et pratique des arts, 2014, 344p. ISBN 978-2-85399-917-5
External links
The Pace Gallery (http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/211/robert-irwin)
Robert Irwin (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2649669/) at IMDb
Robert Irwin (https://www.discogs.com/artist/Robert+Irwin+%282%29) discography at
Discogs
President's lecture: Irwin lecture at Rice University in 2000 (http://webcast.rice.edu/webcast.
php?action=details&event=301)
UCSD Russell Lecturer: Robert Irwin lecture at MCASD La Jolla (2008) (http://video.google.
com/videoplay?docid=-1924460874104413461&hl=en)
"Artist of Space, Light and Now Trees" by Jori Finkel. New York Times article of October 24,
2007 (https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/arts/design/14fink.html)
Daily Gusto review of Weschler's bio of Robert Irwin (http://www.dailygusto.com/blog/archive
s/2008/02/weschlers-robert-irwin.php)
Robert Irwin papers, 1970–2011. Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. Los
Angeles, California. (http://archives2.getty.edu:8082/xtf/view?docId=ead/940081/940081.xm
l;query=;brand=default)