magdalena abakanowicz

BLACK GARMENTS
1969, sisal weaving on metal support / 300 x 180 x 60 cm / Collection of the artist

BOIS - LE - DUC
1970/71, sisal and wool weaving / 800 x 2000 x 200 cm / Collection of the Provinciehuis, s'Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands

Magdalena Abakanowicz for many years has dealt with the issue of "the countless". She says: "I feel overwhelmed by quantity where counting no longer makes sense. By unrepeatability within such quantity. A crowd of people or birds, insect or leaves, is a mysterious assemblage of variants of a certain prototype, a riddle of nature abhorrent to exact repetition or inability to produce it, just as a human hand can not repeat its own gesture".
Each of her figures is an individuality, with its own expression, with specific details of skin. Organic, with the imprint of the artist"s fingers. Their surface is natural like tree bark or animal fur or wrinkled skin. Like all her sculptures also these works are unique objects.

Source: www.abakanowicz.art.pl

80 BACKS
1976-80, burlap and resin / life size h. 61-69 cm; depth 50-56 cm; width 55-66 cm / collection: Museum of Modern Art, Pusan, South Korea

About meaning of sculpture

Art needs somebody to listen to its message, somebody to desire it, somebody to drink it, to use it like wine - otherwise it makes no sense.

What is sculpture? With impressive continuity it testifies to man's evolving sense of reality, and fulfils the necessity to express what cannot be verbalized.

Banished from Paradise, man found himself confronted by the space of the world. It was a territory unknown and inconceivable as inconceivable as are overabundance or emptiness. He tried to reach unknown powers, raising stones, building areas of special meaning…
With the development of society, sculpture began to visualize gods, to glorify leaders, to commemorate history, finally to decorate life.
Today, we are confronted with the inconceivable world we ourselves created. Its reality is reflected in art.

Source: From the statement delivered by Magdalena Abakanowicz during the ceremony of conferring her the Award of International Sculpture Center for the Life Achievements . New York 2005.10.20 / www.abakanowicz.art.pl

Her work is currently on show until 21 May 2023 at the Tate Modern in London: Magdalena Abakanowicz- Every Tangle of Thread and Rope.

Magdalena Abakanowicz was born in 1930 in Poland and came of age during the Second World War. Living in Poland under the Communist regime, she established a career as an international artist and her work is included in many public and private collections around the world.

In the 1960s and 70s, she created radical sculptures from woven fibre. They were soft not hard; ambiguous and organic; towering works that hung from the ceiling and pioneered a new form of installation. They became known as the Abakans.

This exhibition presents a rare opportunity to explore this extraordinary body of work. Many of the most significant Abakans will be brought together in a forest-like display in the 64-metre long gallery space of the Blavatnik Building at Tate Modern.

The exhibition explores this transformative period of Abakanowicz’s practice when her woven forms came off the wall and into three-dimensional space. With these works she brought soft, fibrous forms into a new relationship with sculpture. A selection of early textile pieces and her little-known drawings are also on show.

Source: www.tate.org.uk

All pictures from www.abakanowicz.art.pl