Effigies of Life. A Tribute to Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930–2017)

A major retrospective “Effigies of Life. A Tribute to Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930–2017)” will feature the work of this leading Eastern-European avant-garde artist, notable for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium.

Major venues and public spaces

The main exhibition takes place at the Wrocław Main Railway Station (Dworzec Glowny PKP), in a recently inaugurated city’s public gallery celebrating Wrocław as the European Capital of Culture 2016.

The drawing exhibition will be showcased by the mia ART GALLERY at ul św Mikołaja 61–62, while major sculptural works will be installed in other prominent locations, including the square situated in front of the Railway Station, at the roof of the Wrocław Contemporary Museum, in the the Public Library’s Gallery at the Swidnickie Passage, at Strachowice Airport and in front of the White Stork Synagogue in the Four Temples District. 

Abakanowicz’s oeuvre

Starting in the 1960s and 1970s, Magdalena Abakanowicz revolutionised the traditional language of tapestry by transforming it into forms meant to elicit complex visual and tactile experiences.  With an emphasis on texture and surface, Abakanowicz’s works investigate the dialectic of the organic and inorganic, in an attempt to touch upon the limits of life. The heterogeneous shapes and media of her work challenge conventional ideas of art and raise questions that are essential and universal to human experience.

Opening with the artist’s earliest series of textile works, and concluding with her last monumental sculptures, the exhibition emphasises Abakanowicz’s contribution to the enrichment of twentieth-century art, and her enduring influence on contemporary artists, both in Poland and worldwide. 

In one of his seminal texts on the artist Mariusz Hermansdorfer notes: “Abakanowicz rejects everything that is beautiful and decorative, all wrappings and camouflage. She strips down layer after layer as if flaying a man. Only what is essential remains, which perhaps constitutes the only relevant truth.” Continuing this reflection curator Maria Rus Bojan remarks: “Abakanowicz’s works are effigies of life. They emphasize everything that for us in Central and Eastern Europe is considered to be important: a form is not only the mould of its content, but also an effigy for eternity, where meaning cannot be detached from form. No other Eastern European artist had been able to capture so profoundly in form and content the essence of the human condition experienced by entire nations under Communism.” 

Abakanowicz Globally

Abakanowicz won the gold medal at the 7th International São Paulo Art Biennial in 1956 and represented her country in the Polish Pavilion at the 1980 Venice Biennale. The artist presented her works in more than a hundred solo exhibitions in museums globally, including the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (1968), National Museum Stockholm (1970), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1975), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (1982), Das Städel Museum, Frankfurt (1989), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (1991), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1999), Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (1999), Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (2003) and more recent retrospectives staged at the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest (2005), Trondheim Art Museum (2008), Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2008), the Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf (2008) and many other institutions and galleries.  

• Main exhibition: Dworcowa Public Gallery, 1st floor, Wrocław Main Railway Station. Tickets: 10 PLN (adult), 5 PLN (reduced), are available at the Gallery’s ticket office.

Other venues and locations: 

• mia ART GALLERY, ul św Mikołaja 61–62
• Świdnickie Passage, ul Świdnicka
• Wrocław Contemporary Musuem, pl Strzegomski 2a
• Architecture Musuem, cloister, ul Bernardyńska 5 
• Wrocław Airport, main hall
• White Stork Synagogue, courtyard, ul Włodkowica 7
• Bastion Ceglarski, ul Purkyniego. 

Event details:
wroclaw2016.pl

Photos

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