Robert Irwin: Whitney (1977)

Spiral Bound softcover, 22 x 24 cm, 56 pages, B&W illustrations interspersed with transparent overlays, First Edition

Published on the occasion for the Robert Irwin exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, Ap. 16 - May 29, 1977

With an introduction by Robert Irwin

"This exhibition presents a selection of paintings and sculpture from 1958 through 1971 representing the progressive phases of Irwin's early work, photographs, and plans documenting his on-site installations of the period 1970 through 1976, and one of the artist's largest installation-response pieces, Scrim veil–black rectangle–Natural light, designed specifically for the vast fourth floor gallery of the Whitney Museum. Cumulatively, these interrelated aspects of the exhibition are an ongoing project which illustrates the progression of Irwin's activities, concerns, and explorations. This progression culminates with New York Projections: aerial photographs of New York City, the installation piece in the Museum, and two on-site installations in the city with which Irwin illustrates the extension of his ideas out of the museum context and into the city environment. He designates actual and incidental phenomena in the city as having specific importance and interest, and as donating man's imposition of geometry into nature. New York Projections and the catalogue essay, Notes Toward a Model, are intended to demonstrate and develop Irwin's argument that perception is the essential subject of art."

-Excerpt from Acknowledgments from Richard Marshall, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions