Alina Szapocznikow, "Untitled", 1963, aquarelle and ink on paper. Photo © Centre Pompidou, Mnam-Cci / Georges Meguerditchian / Dist. Rmn-Gp © Adagp, Paris
The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou presents close to 100 drawings alongside several sculptures in celebration of the legacy of the famed Polish artist, while tracing back to her most creative periods in Paris
Global interest in the sculptor has certainly experienced a revival after the major touring exhibition Sculpture Undone was presented in Brussels, Los Angeles and Ohio, before closing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in January 2013. New York Times critic Karen Rosenberg called her highly visceral works of polyester resin "alarming but gratifying for the viewer". What is essential in witnessing Szapocznikow's works is an awareness of her biography - those experiences and traumas that inspired these organic forms - forms that mimic disconnected, often mutilated body parts.
Born in 1926, Alina Szapocznikow was a young girl at the outbreak of the Second World War. Her family was interred in the ghettos of Pabianice and Łódź, before being sent to Auschwitz then Bergen-Belsen. At the camp she worked as a nurse alongside her mother, who was a doctor. When the war ended, she traveled to Prague to study sculpture with Josef Wagner. In 1947 she decided to go to Paris and study at the Academy of Fine Arts, remaining there for four years before returning to her native Poland and establishing herself as an artist.
Yet Paris retained an allure and significance for the sculptor and she returned to the city in 1962. The period that followed was the most fruitful and characteristic phase of her career, as she began to diversify from the classical, figurative manner and experiment with new materials and settled upon the body - her own body, in fact - as her subject. Her battle with cancer, which lasted from the late 1960s to her death in 1973, was another impetus for her work and she worked intensively even through her illness. Among the most important works of this time was the Fetishes series - moulds of body parts that appeared at once sexual, vulnerable, humorous and jarring - created in a style that has been placed between Surrealism, Nouveau Realisme and Pop Art.
Primarily recognized as a sculptor, Szapocznikow also amassed a sizable collection of drawings. These works, too, are in great measure focused on the body. The full catalogue of her drawings and sketches numbers over 600, ranging from academic studies, sketches for sculptures or simply imaginative, abstract drawings. While the series spans drawings from early in her career, most of these drawings were made in Paris between 1963-1968, just before she fell ill. Curator Pierre Restany, who put together an exhibition of her works upon her death in 1973, refers to the character of these works as a “disembodiment of form". Szapocznikow's works have not been shown on such a scale in Paris since the show that Restnay curated four decades ago.
The final sequence of works made between 1969-1973 carry a more dreamlike air, with an injection of colour and soft, abstract shapes.
The exhibition is centered around the Centre Pompidou's latest acquisitions: five drawings and the Fétiche II (1970-1971) by Szapocznikow, a donation from the Society of Friends of the National Museum of Modern Art.
Alina Szapocznikow - Du dessin à la sculpture is on show at the Museum - Gallery of Graphic Art at the Center Pompidou in Paris between the 27th of February - 20th of May 2013. For more information, see: www.centrepompidou.fr
Curators : MnamCci, Jonas Storsve
Author: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Centre Pompidou, own sources