Robert Grosvenor, whose work resisted inventive classification for greater than six a long time, died in Lengthy Island, New York, on Wednesday, September 3, on the age of 88. His dying was introduced by Paula Cooper Gallery, which has represented the artist because the gallery opened in 1968.
Grosvenor was primarily identified for large-scale summary sculptures, though his oeuvre additionally encompassed images, drawing, and collage. He first gained recognition within the Sixties, collaborating in seminal Minimalist group exhibitions like Main Constructions (1966) on the Jewish Museum and Minimal Artwork (1968) on the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. He usually used unorthodox industrial supplies and toyed with ideas of spatial dynamics and performance, all with a dry wit and opaqueness that, at occasions, perplexed his viewers.
Robert Grosvenor, “Topanga” (1965) (© Robert Grosvenor, documenta and Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, picture by Andrea Rossetti)
Grosvenor charted his personal artistic path, diverging from Minimalism’s strict formalism. His various output spanned many types, from seemingly gravity-defying cantilevered metal buildings to fractured picket beams and the outer shells of automobiles set bluntly on the ground. He intentionally left a lot of his work untitled and introduced little clarification, as with a posh 2020 sculpture composed of stacked cinder blocks, rubber lining, and stagnant water that artwork critic and Hyperallergic contributor John Yau described as “simple and brilliantly economical in its construction” whereas additionally “funny and generous.”
“Grosvenor is able to walk right up to the line separating art from function without crossing over or commenting on it,” Yau wrote. “That’s his gift, and I don’t know of another sculptor who has it.”
Set up view of Robert Grosvenor at 155 Wooster Avenue in April 1975 (© Robert Grosvenor, picture by Geoffrey Clements; courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York)
Born in New York Metropolis in 1937, Grosvenor grew up in Rhode Island and Arizona. As a teen, he studied artwork and design in Europe, receiving a classical training on the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Dijon, the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and the Università de Perugia in Italy. As a scholar, he discovered inspiration in experimental artists like Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, and Piero Manzoni, he advised the Brooklyn Rail in a 2019 interview.
After returning to the USA in 1959 to finish a six-month army service requirement, he moved to New York, the place he cast friendships within the artwork scene. He grew to become acquainted with members of the cooperative Park Place Gallery, directed by Paula Cooper, and the Inexperienced Gallery, which gave an early platform to artists together with Yayoi Kusama, Mark di Suvero, and Donald Judd. He described his artwork of that point to the Brooklyn Rail as “paintings that came off the wall,” and in 1962 he started exhibiting it in group exhibits.
Set up view of Robert Grosvenor at Paula Cooper Gallery (© Robert Grosvenor, courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York)
In line with Paula Cooper Gallery, he felt that his profession started with the 1965 exhibition of “Transoxiana” — a 31-foot angular cantilevered sculpture that was later featured within the pivotal present Main Constructions alongside works by Judd and such different Minimalist pioneers as Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, and Anne Truitt. He additionally garnered approval for his dynamic geometric works, as in “Topanga” (1965), which he constructed after seeing an image of a large photo voltaic telescope in Arizona’s Sonoran desert, and an untitled all-white metal construction from 1968–70 that hovers midair from cables connected to the ceiling. The latter was featured in his first solo present at Paula Cooper Gallery.
Departing from the Minimalist motion in the course of the ’70s, Grosvenor experimented with picket sculptures constructed from damaged lengths of pine planks and located phone poles. Resting horizontally on the bottom, they featured symmetrical fractures, and at occasions had been blackened with creosote, a poisonous, oily preservative. Within the following a long time, he employed discovered supplies like corrugated metal and concrete blocks to create unclassifiable buildings that wavered between structure and sculpture. His most up-to-date works included vehicular ground sculptures stemming from his lifelong fascination with vehicles and boats.
Robert Grosvenor throughout Spring 1969 (picture by John Ferrari, courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery)
“His work of the past twenty years was among his very best, at times making that of younger sculptors appear awfully conservative in comparison. In comparison? There was none. His was a world really unto itself,” wrote curator Bob Nickas in an announcement for the New York Artwork Critics Affiliation.
All through his life, Grosvenor remained humble about his inventive course of.
“I make as much as I can,” he advised the Brooklyn Rail. “I work regularly and very quickly, but there are a lot of mistakes. I guess that’s why my production isn’t so big.”
Greater than 30 of the artist’s works are at present on view in a solo exhibition on the Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany, which continues by January 2026. His items are additionally held within the collections of quite a few establishments, together with Storm King Artwork Middle and the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York, the Walker Artwork Middle in Minneapolis, and the Institute of Modern Artwork in Miami.
Set up view of Robert Grosvenor at Paula Cooper Gallery earlier this yr (© Robert Grosvenor, picture by Steven Probert; courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York)
