In his early career, during the late 1960s and early 70s, Robert Irwin followed in the footsteps of the abstract expressionists. He started as a painter, but quickly adopted objects and materials that would allow him to explore, with greater breadth,...
[more]In his early career, during the late 1960s and early 70s, Robert Irwin followed in the footsteps of the abstract expressionists. He started as a painter, but quickly adopted objects and materials that would allow him to explore, with greater breadth, notions of perception and the effects of light and form. Transparent plastics and light itself were his new materials, and he moved to redefine how installations, objects, and environments could redefine the relationship between space and spectator.
Robert Irwin's recent work follows this trajectory; using materials like fluorescent lights or scrims and painted screens he transforms specific sites, subtly altering the way space and light are brought together and experienced. In the gallery where light and temperature are tightly controlled, the focus of his work tends towards how individuals experience a space where light emanates from the walls, or is diffused through hanging panes of fabric. Each installation tends to have two aspects: the first is the physical, formal construction of screens, fluorescent tubes, and the space they occupy, and the second, the particular atmosphere that these create. Unlike other artists who work with light like James Turrell or Olafur Eliasson, Irwin's works are rooted in a practical and distinctly non-illusory vein of experience.
For many years, Irwin prohibited the photography of his works, insisting that such representations would diminish the experiential qualities attendant to his installations; photographs could show the configuration of lamps or scrims, but they would lack the particular quality of light emanating from a fluorescent tube, or the incidental shadow of a human figure moving between hanging transparent screens. These incidental and fleeting qualities have guided Irwin's recent work, particularly the gardens he has designed for museums in Los Angeles. In 1992 he began work on a 134,000 square foot garden for the Getty Center in Los Angeles, a meandering pathway featuring pools, topiary, flowers and water features. These revolve around a central pool, like a Celtic knot of colors, sounds, shapes and textures that grow and change with the seasons. A dense hedge of azaleas, planted in beds within the central pool bloom chartreuse in the spring, retaining the shape designed by Irwin while also embodying the fleeting qualities so essential to his gallery installations.
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