Robert
Irwin

Robert
Irwin

American, born in 1928


Together with James Turrell and Doug Wheeler, Robert Irwin is part of the Light and Space minimalist movement from California. Inspired by traditional painting's format and display (i.e. rectangular and at eye level), he works on light and color. Having adopted French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty's principles on phenomenology, he says that the experience lived by the viewer is paramount in understanding a work of art.

In the early 1970s, the artist leaves his studio and focuses on ‘site-conditioned’ production, or as Robin Clark said, “works made in response to the specific conditions of a given location or situation.” From then on, rather than physical artworks for exportation or exhibition, the artist produces phenomena that involve the viewers' perception at a precise time and in a given space.

Robert Irwin's work was first shown by the Pinault Collection in the exhibition The Illusion of Light at Palazzo Grassi, in 2014.
Robert Irwin's artwork