For over six decades, Robert Irwin (b. 1928, Long Beach, California) has explored perception as the fundamental issue of art. Irwin, who began his career as a painter in the 1950s and became a pioneer of the “Light and Space” movement in the 1960s, has, through a continual breaking down of the frame, come to regard the role of art as “conditional” – working within and responding to the specific surrounding world of experience.
Irwin has had more than seventy-five solo exhibitions at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970–71); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1976, 2009–10); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1977, 2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (1997, 2007); the Secession Vienna (2013); and Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1998–99, 2015–17). In 1993 the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, organized a retrospective of his work that traveled to Kölnisher Kunstverein, Cologne; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
Irwin lives and works in San Diego.
For over six decades, Robert Irwin (b. 1928, Long Beach, California) has explored perception as the fundamental issue of art. Irwin, who began his career as a painter in the 1950s and became a pioneer of the “Light and Space” movement in the 1960s, has, through a continual breaking down of the frame, come to regard the role of art as “conditional” – working within and responding to the specific surrounding world of experience.
Irwin has had more than seventy-five solo exhibitions at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970–71); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1976, 2009–10); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1977, 2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (1997, 2007); the Secession Vienna (2013); and Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1998–99, 2015–17). In 1993 the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, organized a retrospective of his work that traveled to Kölnisher Kunstverein, Cologne; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
Irwin lives and works in San Diego.
–Dorothea Lange / February 1960 (more…)