Robert Irwin

Robert Irwin is a contemporary American artist who explores human perception with immersive site-specific installations. “What made an artist an artist is a sensibility,” he has said. “Without the limitations of thinking about being a painter, you can operate anywhere in the world.” Born on September 12, 1928 in Long Beach, CA, Irwin studied at the Otis Art Institute, the Jepson Art Institute, and the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Originally a painter, Irwin’s work from the 1960s confronted his feelings towards the arbitrary nature of the medium and its inability to transcend its own spatial environment. By 1972, the artist had abandoned his studio practice all together and began to produce installations that deal directly with light and space. It was around this time that Irwin fell into the milieu of Light and Space movement, which included John McCracken, James Turrell, and Larry Bell. In the decades that followed the artist’s works have been shown at the DIA: Beacon Center for the Arts in Beacon, New York and the Central Gardens for the Getty Center in Los Angeles. He currently lives and works in San Diego, CA. Today, Irwin’s works are held in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., among others.

Credit Artnet.com