Robert Irwin

Robert Irwin (born September 12, 1928, Long Beach, California, U.S.—died October 25, 2023, San Diego, California) was an American painter and sculptor known for pioneering the Light and Space movement, a variety of West Coast Minimalist art that was concerned with the visual impact of light on geometric forms and on the viewer’s sensory experience of the work. In 1984 he became the first artist to receive the MacArthur Foundation “genius” award.

Irwin studied art in Los Angeles, first (1948–50) at the Otis Art Institute (now the Otis College of Art and Design) and later (1952–54) at the Chouinard Art Institute (later California Institute of the Arts). During those early years he painted in the prevailing Abstract Expressionist style.

Beginning in 1959, Irwin became associated with the Ferus Gallery scene, whose artists included its cofounder Ed Kienholz and painters Ed Moses, Craig Kauffman, and Billy Al Bengston. Over the seven years that he was connected with that circle of artists, Irwin’s style radically evolved from gestural painting to experiments with Minimalism and then with installation and sculpture. He thus rose to the forefront of the California Light and Space movement, along with Doug Wheeler and James Turrell. Irwin’s installation pieces focused on the sensory experience and his role in guiding the viewer’s perception of the work. One of his early notable works was his “discs” series (1965–69), in which Irwin’s method of installation and manipulation of light and paint made the discs—painted aluminum round convex shapes—appear to float or sometimes recede endlessly in space.

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In time Irwin’s works became what he called his “site-conditioned” works—more-immersive experiences for the viewer than his previous works had been. For those installations, Irwin attempted to draw the viewer’s attention to the site in which his work was made and then to the art’s response to the light and environment. Fractured Light—Partial Scrim—Eye Level Wire (1970–71) at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City is an early example of a “site-conditioned” work. At MoMA he was given a dull, fluorescent-lit room, which he transformed by using cool- and warm-hued bulbs, a scrim, and wire. Visitors were invited into the room simply to notice their surroundings. Though it did not receive much attention at the time, that work was a critical stepping-stone in Irwin’s artistic trajectory and came to be cited as a landmark in the burgeoning site-specific art tradition.

Besides his installation work, Irwin wrote theory (Being and Circumstance: Notes Toward a Conditional Art, 1985) and generated landscape projects, notably the Central Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles (opened to the public in 1997). Irwin was also instrumental to the interior and landscape design of the Dia:Beacon contemporary art museum in Beacon, New York (opened 2003), which is housed in a former Nabisco box-printing factory.