Works such as Łóżko (Bed), Monstrum (Monster) and Ciało (Body) had already vanished from Szapocznikow 's studio. From then on, the essence of her artistic search lay in the contradiction between complete, definite form and incomplete, understated, almost abstract form. Osęka remarked aptly that in Szapocznikow's art, "she constantly returns to the experience she gained through her work on the nude, as she discovers the endless possibilities and expressions of the human body".
Since for a long time she was interested mostly in her own body, one could assume that there was something narcissistic in her work. Even while radically transforming the masses of her new sculptures, she still observed biological forms. Her shapes may not have been concrete, but they remained legible enough for the viewer to realize that the sculptor was striving to find forms of expression for her fascination with the "impact force of the biology of life", as Janusz Zagrodzki wrote. Szapocznikow herself said at the time that she was interested in "searching for form, searching for the greatest expression of sensuality or dramatic quality". This was in keeping with her fascination with what happens to a human being in liminal moments. "The fleeting moment, the trivial moment – these are the only symbols of our earthly existence", she wrote. This conviction was spawned by her personal experiences with war, death and illness. Szapocznikow's sculptures were almost entirely focused on memorizing the body and "recording" the impermanent. Her designs for monuments referred more to the collective experience; later, her art would become primarily the record of one female body subject to the pressure of suffering.
Both express the epitaph-like tone of her art, thus re-asserting its existential dimension. In Szapocznikow's work an awareness of unavoidable pain is fused with a strong belief in the power of the senses. Her early sculptures are images of teenage girls of uncertain identity, while her later autobiographical works – such as Brzuchy (Bellies), Nowotwory (Tumours, 1968) and Fetishes Fetysze (Fetishes, 1970) – often feature a fascinating, attractive woman. Their dramatic character lies mostly in the fragmentation of body parts and the changes in their function; casts of body parts replace the whole sculpture, transforming it into an artistic object or even, seemingly, a design. Examples of the former include the works which were created by reproducing a single motif. Such "tautological" assemblages include: Portret zwielokrotniony (Multiplied Portrait, 1965), four casts of the lower part of the artist's face and breast cast in bronze and multicolour polyurethane and mounted on a pedestal of black granite; Bukiet II (Bouquet II,1966), imprints of a mouth changing into flowers; and Bellies (1968), casts in vinyl or polyurethane that can be randomly re-arranged. Popiersie bez głowy (Headless Bust, 1968), a polyurethane cast of a naked upper body with handless arms stretched out alongside it, radiates an exceptional aura. This Bust, along with Stalla (the lower part of a woman's face and naked knees emerging from a magma-like asphalt mass), confirm Szapocznikow's tendency toward self-identification.
Art as An Erotic-Thanatological Treatise
At the same time the artist's works developed an undertone of self-irony. These "utilitarian" design-like objects downplay both individuality and popularity, as can be seen in her Iluminowana (Illuminated, 1966) – a vertically over-extended female nude with a crown made of mouth and breast casts mounted on her neck instead of a head, the upper part of which was illuminated. The same strategy was also employed in Lampa (Lamp, 1968), in which Szapocznikow used only the cast of a female breast in polyurethane but strengthened its expression by introducing light. Thus the female breast was pressed into service as a model for a lighting device (all other Lamps are of a similar character).
Generally in Szapocznikow's art, the body assumes the character of "exhumed" or "re-appropriated" matter. Bodily remains are seen as memories, particularly memories of the artist herself, who was brave enough transcend many borders (including those of good taste at the time in Lamps and the series Desery (Desserts) and break taboos by talking openly about her own death. This is even more significant considering that, until the very end, she never shrunk from the subject. Starting with the first casts of her own body Noga (Leg, 1962), she constantly returned to the drama of both individual and universal passing. Yet even when she used only selected parts of the human figure (as in Multiplied Portrait and Bellies), these parts remained an apotheoses of femininity and had an inner glow, an invitation to an intimate caress.
The ostentatious auto-vivisection that the artist almost literally performed on her own body inspires trust in both her works and her words. Her artistic credo – effectively her will – written less than a year before her death, reads as follows:
My artistic gesture is aimed at the human body, this 'entirely erogenous area' with its undefined and ephemeral feelings, celebrating its impermanence in the recesses of our body and in the traces of the steps we take on this earth. Through casts of the human body, I attempt to preserve in translucent polystyrene the ephemeral moments of life, its paradoxes and its absurdity. [...] I am convinced that among all manifestations of impermanence, the human body is the most fragile. It is the sole source of all joy, all pain and all truth, and this thanks to its ontological poverty, which is as inevitable as it is (at the conscious level) absolutely unacceptable.
This confession takes on exceptional meaning when related to her sculptures from the years 1968–1973. In the gloomy Tumours and Fetishists the body is almost tortured, subjected not only to fragmentation or massacre, but to actual annihilation. Pogrzeb Aliny (Alina's Funeral, 1970) in particular gives this impression; it is a complex composition of polyester and plasmatic matter in which the artist's personal items – photographs, underwear and shreds of gauze – are immersed. The synthetic material is indispensable here, if solely to bind together elements that do not originate in the realm of art. Soon after that came Pamiątka I (Souvenir I,1971), a photograph of a smiling girl, the little Alina, buried deep in polyester. Next came Łza (Tear, 1971), in which a drop in the shape of a female breast is "dripping" from a shapeless scrap of crumpled gauze. Szapocznikow also used casts of her own sick body in the nearly-abstract Tumours, in which understated forms seem to hide that which is the most crucial. She also used polyester to immerse photographs cloaked in bloodied bandages. Unable to reserve her praise only for beauty, she was forced to focus her work largely on memorising an "alien" body ravaged by illness and time. It was through this process that Szapocznikow's art became an Erotic-Thanatological treatise.
Part I – Alina Szapocznikow – Life in the Studio – A Film by Krzysztof Tchórzewski
The final chapter of her work was Herbarium (1971–1972), a series in which only the first piece, Self-portrait, bears the image of the artist's face. The rest are casts not of herself but of her young son's body. Turning away from verism, she created casts that were cut, crushed and flattened on the ground, as if between the sheets of a herbarium. She took on the role of an anatomist, entomologist or botanist. Yet despite this, Herbarium remains the artist's last attempt to express her own story, the story of a woman and mother; it is an attempt to express the history of her body and its suffering.
Part II – Alina Szapocznikow – Life in the Studio – A Film by Krzysztof Tchórzewski