Robert Irwin (artist)

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Robert Irwin is an American artist.

Beginning as a painter, Robert Irwin's art grew out of Abstract Expressionism, the art movement that saw its beginnings in early 20th century Europe, notably in the Bauhaus with Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. In post-World War II America the movement saw a flowering particularly in New York City with a group of artists loosely referred to as the New York School, and also at Black Mountain College with Robert Rauschenberg along with musician John Cage and dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. Irwin’s installation works of the late 20th century are a strong example of an aesthetic that has its roots in abstraction with a direction that extends beyond it.

Curious about pushing the boundaries of art and perception, in the 1970s Robert Irwin left studio work to pursue installation art that dealt directly with light and space: the basis of visual perception, in both out door 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.

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’d 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.

Irwin's 1983 work Two Running Violet V Forms is featured as part of the Stuart Collection of public artwork on the campus of the University of California, San Diego.