Magdalena Abakanowicz is an internationally recognized artist, who, after attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland, began her career as a painter. After gradually moving toward working with three-dimensional forms, in 1970 she made the artistic changes in scale and material and began creating figurative and non-figurative sculptures from burlap and resin, eventually moving to bronze, wood, stone, and steel. She has had installations in Italy, Israel, Germany, United States, South Korea, Lithuania, and Poland. After teaching as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan for 25 years, she was commissioned by Paris and designed Arboreal Architecture, an ecological city with skyscrapers covered with vegetation. She has created over 1000 sculptures worldwide and has also designed and choreographed dances deriving from her sculptures which are performed by a Japanese Butoh dance group and Polish dancers. Two of her most famous collections include War Games, huge tree trunks armed with steel, and Mutants, monumental metaphoric animals, animal heads and birds in bronze. She has received honors from the Rhode Island School of Design, The Academy of Fine Arts Lodz, Poland and the Pratt Institute, New York, as well as awards from Brazil, Germany, Austria, and France. She currently lives and works in Warsaw, Poland.
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Time Line
- 1930 Born in Falenty, Poland
- 1950/54 Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland
- 1954/60 Paints a series of large gouaches on paper and canvas
- 1960s Creates monumental three-dimensional forms called Abakans, made out of materials woven by herself in her own technique
- 1970s Changes scale and material. Creates huge cycles of figurative and non-figurative sculptures made out of burlap and resins, called Alterations.
- 1980s Creates series of monumental sculptures using bronze, stone, wood and iron. Installs permanent outdoor "spaces to experience" in Italy, Israel, S.Korea, Germany and America.
- 1990/91 Upon the invitation of the Paris authorities concerning the enlargement of the Great Axis of Paris, she designs Arboreal Architecture, her concept of a modern, ecological city, in which buildings organic in shape, are vertical gardens. Creates "Bronze Crowd", group of 36 figures.
- 1992/93 Continues to work on "War Games" - huge tree trunks armed with steel. Begins the cycle of "Hand-like Trees" - vertical bronze forms.
- 1994/97 Designs and choreographs dances deriving from her sculptures, performed by "Asbestos", the Japanese Butoh dance group. Creates "Hurma", 150 children figures and "Backward Standing", 60 figures of adults. Creates cycles of monumental metaphoric bronze heads, animals and birds follows.
- 1998/99 Creates huge oval forms out of concrete -"The Space of Unknown Growth"- in Europe Parkas, Lithuania. Creates first groups of "walking figures" out of burlap, then also out of bronze.
- 2000 Creates a Crowd of 95 Figures standing and walking bronze
- 2001 Creates two big groups of walking figures.
Instals compositions of six birds out of aluminum
She has been Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Poznan, Poland, 1965/90, and Visiting Professor at the U.C.L.A. (1984) Magdalena Abakanowicz lives and works in Warsaw.
Selected Museums and Private Collections
- Australian National Gallery of Art, Canberra, Australia
- Caracas Museum of Modern Art, Caracas, Venezuela
- Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland
- Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
- Giuliano Gori, "Spazzi d' Arte", Fattoria di Celle, Santomato di Pistoia, Italy
- Hess Collection, Napa Valley, California
- Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
- Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.
- Hakone Open Air Museum, Japan
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
- Jardin des Tuleries, Paris, France
- Kunstindustrimuseet, Oslo, Norway
- Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art, Japan
- Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, California
- Ludwig Museum, Koln, Germany
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
- Musée d' Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
- Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
- Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw, Poland
- Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland
- Museum of Modern Art Hung Kim and Lee, Pusan , South Korea
- Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Internacional Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico
- Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,Madrid, Spain
- Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan
- Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan
- Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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Related Articles
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"Magdalena Abakanowicz to Receive ISC's 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award", Postscript, Sculpture November 2004 Vol. 23 No. 9.
"Lessons in Magdalena Abakanowicz's Unrecognized Anatomy ", Karolina Hubner, Sculpture Magazine-April 2003, Vol. 22 No. 3.
"Difference and Repetition: The Latest Sculptures of Magdalena Abakanowicz", Karolina Hubner, Sculpture Magazine-Dec 2000, Vol. 19. No. 10. |
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