Magdalena Abakanowicz - sculptor 1930-present

[gius]

We learnt about her in textiles class.. She used to work extensively in textiles in the beginning, but we don't consider her 'textile artist.' In fact she prefers the title sculptor and has said she worked only with whatever she had at the moment, and at that time, materials were expensive, but yarn, fabric, textiles were completely available...

And so, here are some of her monstrous textiles...

1. Bois-le-Duc - sisal, wool
2. Abakan Red - sisal on metal support
3. Black Environment - sisal, 15 pieces
4. Black Garments
www.abakanowicz.art.pl

[gius]

You can see one of the recurring themes in her work is the "vagina" motif

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".

"I immerse in the crowd, like a grain of sand in the friable sands. I am fading among the anonymity of glances, movements, smells, in the common absorption of air, in the common pulsation of juices under the skin...”

1. Artist working on the Abakans
2. 80 backs - burlap, resin, at South korea
3. Black Garment
4. Seated figures - burlap, resin, pedestal
5. Abakan Orange

[gius]

A lot of these works are done by 'weaving,' Tapestry technique. She will line up vertical threads, climb up a ladder and work her way down, interlacing horizontal threads into the vertical ones as she goes...

The material used for many of these pieces was found, often collecting sisal robes from harbors, untwining them into threads and dyeing them. Hung from the ceiling, Abakans reach sizes as large as thirteen feet with sometimes only a few inch clearance from the ground.

wikipedia

[gius]

She was one of the most important female artists marking the 1960s... She brought textiles to a whole new level, creating forms with fabrics in a way that wasnt seen before: monumental, sculptural, untamed,wild...

[SomethingElse]

Amazing. Her bronze work is remarkable too.



"Bronze Crowd" at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2004

[ChrissyM]

these have such an organic look..

thanks for the thread gius!