ORIGINAL VISIONS SHIFTING THE PARADIGM. WOMEN’S ART. 1970H996

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MAGDALENA\ /I A r^_ A 1 ABAKANOWICZ MARY BETH EDELSON lANET EISH AGNES MARTIN PAT STEIR CARRIE MAE WEEMS MCMULLEN MUSEUM OE ART BOSTON COLLEGE This publication is issued in conjunction with Edited by Alston Conley, Jennifer Grinnell the exhibition Original Visions: Shifting the Paradigm, and Katherine Nahum

Women’s Art ig/0-ipg6, at the Charles S. and Copy-edited by John Ombelets Isabella V. McMullen Museum of Art,

Boston College, January 26 to May 18, 1997 - Designed by Boston College Office of Publications and Print Marketing; Monica DeSalvo, Senior The exhibition was organized by the McMullen Graphic Designer; BCP952- Museum of Art, Boston College, Alston Conley, Curator. The publication was supported by Text typeset in Mrs. Eaves, Trajan and Scala-Sans Boston College. Printed by Champagne/Lafayette Copyright © 1997 by the Charles S. and Isabella V. Front cover: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, (no. 2), Magdalena Abakanowicz, Self-Portrait, Chestnut Hill, MA. 1976, fiber and glue, 9 * 7 * 5 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number Anne & Jacques Baruch Collection, Ltd., Chicago 96-79911 photo: Jerry Kobylecky ISBN 9640153-6-6 Back cover:

(no. 5). Mary Beth Edelson, Fire Flights in Deep Space, 1977' black and white silver print, triptych, 21 in. X 21 in. each. Collection of the Artist, New York CONTENTS

4 Director’s Preface Nancy Netzer

5 Acknowledgments Alston Conley

6 Original Visions Alston Conley

9 Color Plates

Essays and Interviews

19 Magdelena Abakanowicz Essay by Katherine Nahum, Department of Fine Arts, Boston College

Interview by Marianne LaFrance, Department of Psychology, Boston College

27 Mary Beth Edelson Essay by Alston Conley, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College

Interview by Jennifer S. Grinnell, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College

37 Janet Fish Essay by Katherine Nahum

Interview by Mary A. Armstrong, Department of Fine Arts, Boston College

47 Agnes Martin Essay by Katherine Nahum

"Mystery is the Beauty of Life,” by Agnes Martin

53 Pai Steir Essay and Interview by Alston Conley

61 Carrie Mae Weems Essay by Katherine Nahum

Interview by Lisa M. Cuklanz, Department of Sociology, Boston College

70 Objects in the Exhibition

72 Bibliography DIRECTOR’S PREFACE

The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College arrangements for loans. We are grateful to John

is pleased to present, Original Visions: Shiflingthe Ombelets for his thoughtful and careful

Paradigm, Women’s Art, igyo-iggG, examining the copy-editing of the text, to Monica DeSalvo for contributions of six outstanding artists rarely her handsome design of this book, and again, shown in the Boston area; Magdalena to Alston Conley for the inspired design and Abakanowicz, Mary Beth Edelson, Janet Fish, installation of the exhibition. Agnes Martin, Pat Steir, and Carrie Mae Weems. One of the goals of this exhibition was to show a As always, we are indebted to other members broader range of art by women than is usually of the Museum staff for their dedication to this represented. In pursuit of that goal, the Museum project: Alice Harkins, Heather Fryer, Kerry has arranged, by decade, contemporaneous works Leonard, Rachel Mayer, Gabriella Palmieri and by women of different generations, working last but not least, to our ever-efficient

in a variety of styles ranging from abstraction to administrator, Helen Swartz.

representation, and addressing a variety of issues from the feminist to the non-political. To locate and bring together an exhibition of such varied works has been complicated. Without

This innovative conception owes its origin to the generosity of the many lenders, we could not the vision and enthusiasm of our curator, Alston have succeeded. We extend our deepest gratitude

Conley, who assembled a formidable group of to each of them. It would have been impossible professors in the Department of Fine Arts and to realize this exhibition without the support and the interdisciplinary program of Women’s Studies generosity of the administration of Boston at Boston College to serve as advisors and con- College. We wish to thank, in particular. Univer- tributors to the catalogue. The essays were written sity President William P. Leahy, S.J.; University by Conley, himself a painter, and by Katherine Chancellor J. Donald Monan S.J.; Vice President Nahum, an art historian. Interviews with the art- Margaret Dwyer; Academic Vice President William

ists were conducted by Mary Armstrong, a painter; Neenan S.J.; Executive Vice President Francis

Lisa M. Cuklanz, a rhetorical critic; Jennifer Campanella; Dean of the College of Arts &

Grinnell, an historian of women; and Marianne Sciences J. Robert Barth, S.J.; Associate Dean of LaFrance, a social psychologist. A larger group Faculties Richard Spinello; and Associate Director

including Mary Sherman, an artist, and Elizabeth of Development Lynne Prosser. We also extend Kowaleski -Wallace, Lorraine Liscio and Judith thanks to the Friends of the McMullen Museum,

Wilt, all literary critics, aided in the discussion of chaired by Nancy and John Joyce. issues to be addressed in the exhibition and in the

initial selection of the artists. We extend thanks to Finally, in addition to its scholarly mission, the

all of them for their keen support of this project. exhibition aims to focus on the role of women’s

creative expression in a broader sense. It is hoped

Special acknowledgment is due the indefatigable that an examination of the work of these six

Jennifer Grinnell, who, as the Museum’s exemplary artists will inspire a greater apprecia- manager of publications and exhibitions, oversaw tion in New England of the female contribution editing and production of this catalogue and to our collective culture.

Nancy VeRei LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION

Anne andjack Baruch Joost Elffers, New York PaceWildenstein, New York

Collection Ltd., Chicago Alvin and Barbara Krakow, Boston P.P. O.W. Gallery, New York

TTie Collection of the late Marlborough Gallery, New York Riverfront Office Park,

Edna S. Beron, Boston Robert Miller Gallery, New York Cambridge

Mary Beth Edelson, New York DC Moore Gallery, New York Private Collections ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This exhibition was shaped through a collabora- Gabriela Palmier! and graduate research assistant tive effort by faculty from both the Women’s Heather Eryer—who assisted with the myriad Studies Program and Eine Arts Department details that kept the exhibition on track. of Boston College. Several of the faculty volun- teered to meet and discuss the concerns and 1 am grateful to the Boston College Office of themes addressed by this exhibition. I am grate- Publications and Print Marketing and design ful to Elizabeth Kowaleski -Wallace, Lorraine director David Williams for our catalogue and Liscio, Mary Sherman and Judith Wilt for their invitation, and especially to Monica DeSalvo time, ideas and interest at the formative stages. for her graceful design and John Ombelets for

In addition, 1 would like to thank Mary his thorough copy-editing. Armstrong, Lisa M. Cuklanz, Jennifer Grinnell and Marianne LaErance for their continued The life blood of exhibitions are the artists involvement and participation in the catalogue. and galleries that lend their artworks for display,

In their interviews with the participating artists, and particularly the private lenders who each has brought unique interests, passions and share their collections with the public, despite insights to the project. Likewise, special thanks the resulting blank walls in their homes. We owe are due to Katherine Nahum for her involvement a debt of thanks to all of them, and to those who on many levels, especially her research, essays assisted with the loans, compiling information and editorial prowess. for the exhibition and the catalogue: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Dr. Elissa Arons, Anne and

1 owe a particular debt of gratitude to my Jack Baruch, the late Edna S. Beron, Scott Catto, colleagues at the Museum: exhibitions and John Cheim, Elaine Cohos, Mary Beth Edelson, publications manager Jennifer Grinnell, for her Joost Elffers, Janet Eish, Arnold Glimcher, commitment, attention to detail and persever- Marc Glimcher, Michele Heinrici, Alvin and ance which helped bring this project to fruition; Barbara Krakow, Heidi Lang, Agnes Martin, director Nancy Netzer, for her continued support Jack Mognaz, Mary Morris, Pat Steir, Brian Vaas of this exhibition; and the staff—administrator and Garrie Mae Weems. Helen Swartz, undergraduate research fellow

Alston Conl^

5 ^

ORIGINAL VISIONS

BY ALSTON CONLEY

The exhibition, Original Visions, brings together Across the country, a large majority of the under-

six women artists: Magdalena Abakanowicz, graduate art students are female, while most of Mary Beth Edelson, Janet Fish, Agnes Martin, their teachers are male. Although the numbers Pat Steir and Carrie Mae Weems. Their pursuit of female art faculty members have grown since of individual expression over a period of a the early ’70s (when only two percent of art

quarter century, and in some cases longer, has faculty were women), ^ the low ratios of female-

brought each of them to a high level of accom- to-male faculty still hold. A similar situation plishment documented in numerous exhibitions, exists among art history students and faculty, and

and constituting a record of achievement by discrepancy of opportunity also exists for all

women artists not found any time earlier. This women who pursue careers in the field. Despite exhibition and catalogue explore the complexity, an improvement in the exhibition opportunities

variety and development of their work. for women in the last quarter century, a

situation far short of equality still exists today.

TTe history of sexism in the visual arts, as well as Women, compared to men, are exhibited less in art history, has now been well documented. frequently in major galleries and museums. Women have been denied the education, support They are given fewer major survey exhibitions.

and access to the financial rewards that were The pertinent statistics have been culled and necessary to accomplish and sustain a high level promoted in posters, political actions and books,

of achievement in the most competitive arena. notably by the Guerrilla Girls. This politically active Linda Nochlin in the early 197OS challenged the group of feminists who maintain their anonym-

"whole erroneous intellectual substructure upon ity by wearing gorilla masks when in public have

which the question, 'Why have there been no become the conscience of the art world.

great women artists?’ is based,”’ and she opened

the doors for a new generation of feminist art The lack of women as role models, in exhibitions historians to deconstruct prevailing biases and and as teachers, has had an undermining effect

to present new paradigms. Lucy Lippard noted as characterized by Eva Hesse, one of the best

during these years that women’s exhibitions "as artists of her generation, in a letter to Ethelyn

a framework within which to exhibit good art... Honig in 1965- A woman is "at a disadvantage

are no more restrictive than, say, exhibiting from the beginning. . .She. . .lacks conviction that

German, Cubist, black and white, soft, young or she has the 'right’ to achievement. She... lacks

new art.”^ The wealth of art, and the variety of the belief that her achievements are worthy. new art forms produced by women subsequent Therefore she has not the steadfastness necessary

to such comments, necessitate an examination of to carry ideas to the full developments. . .A

the presentation of women’s art. Historically, fantastic strength is necessary and courage. 1

curators organized shows without the rubric "an dwell on this all the time.”® If the doors, opened exhibition of male artists,” and presented their since the ’70s, remain open for succeeding

often discriminatory views under the pretext of generations, it is because of continuous political

quality. An all-woman show, such as the one engagement, organized exhibitions, critical presented here, serves as a celebration of the work reevaluation, historical revisions and new of six women artists, as well as an educational paradigms presented by feminists, and especially

role, by presenting individual exemplary artistic women s pursuit of their own original visions. achievement and potential role models for our

6 students, and, in particular, female students. ,

Agnes Martin’s (b. 1912) first influence when the underlying conceptual basis of art, and both she was studying in New York in the 194OS concur with Marcel Duchamp’s rejection of the was Abstract Expressionism. This avant-garde dominant "retinal” orientation of early Modern movement tried to reconcile Surrealism’s spon- painting and sculpture. The Minimalists relied taneous tapping of the unconscious through on reductive forms and material qualities to "psychic automatism,” unlimited emotional make an object of thought. The Conceptualists content and modernist abstraction free of eliminated the object altogether, and used utopian visions, while rejecting the politically textual discourse, sometimes combined with concerned subject matter of the ’3OS. Abstract documentary photographs, to convey their Expressionism became the dominant school of associated ideas. Conceptualists (along with

the ’50s through discussions at the Tenth Street Performance artists) challenged the entire Club, through new venues for exhibition and commercial structure of museum authentication

through critical acceptance during the post-war and gallery promotion of art as a commodity. period of rising American world influence.

The New York School had earned international Mary Beth Edelson (b. 1934 ) embraced the acclaim by the end of the decade. Martin’s expo- ’70s women’s movement, making feminism the sure to this work in the early ’5OS (she returned subject of her art and her performances. Per- twice more to New York) led to her assimilation formance Art grew out of divergent influences, of the ideas of Abstract Expressionism. Her including the ’6os "Happenings,” experimental less gestural style allowed her to be recognized dance and improvisational theater. Edelson’s along with the ’6os Minimalists, who found rituals created new myths through individual or literal meaning in the physical attributes of pure group activities that were meant to fulfill form and rejected symbolism, or any reference collective social, political and spiritual needs outside the art object. In 1967- Martin, by of women, and project positive gender images. then a mature artist, left New York and sought The use of photographic documentation of isolation in New Mexico. She never experienced her ritual performances reveals the influence of or embraced the ’70s feminist movement. Conceptual Art, while manipulations of figura- tive photo images are ccasionally associated with Janet Eish (b. 1938) was schooled in a late phase the earlier genre of Body Art. of Abstract Expressionism, yet she moved on.

While aware of the Pop Art imagists of the late Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953 ) uses her socialist ’50s and early ’60s, she developed a representa- and feminist political beliefs, informed by the tive style based on the observation of domestic Black Consciousness movement of the civil items, especially those demonstrating the rights era, to shape her art. Her earliest work percipient effects of light on transparency. After was documentary in the tradition of street three decades dominated by successively more photography. Although interested in reinvent- reductive schools of abstraction, a revival ing the leftist photo essay, she rejects the of imagery and representation emerged during documentary style established in the ’30s and the ’70s. While feminism was not the subject ’40s by the Farm Security Administration of ber painting, the feminist revelation that "the photographers as presenting distorted views by personal is political” is apparent in the choice outsiders. An alternative tradition was disclosed of Eish’s subjects. by the publication during the ’70s of The Black Photographers Annual examining the work of three Pat Steir (b. 1940) also studied art during the generations of Black photographers stretching peak of the Abstract Expressionist movement, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Kamoinge but was influenced by a nonconformist figura- Workshop of the ’6os. Weems was especially tion. Although not the subject of Steir’s art, inspired by Roy DeCarava, whose photo essay. gender may be a subtext of ber appropriation The Sweet Flypapcro/Ii/e (1955), included a of historical styles that excluded women. Both narrative by Langston Hughes. Weems’s own use Minimal and Conceptual Art of the ’60s of narrative has ranged from the personal to the influenced her imagist paintings, a synthesis of folkloric. Largely eliminated from modernist contradictory concerns. Conceptual and art of the first half of the century, narrative and

Art are related in that both emphasize some political content revived in the ’70s. Minimal was 7 Weems’s examination of racial stereotypes have include, along with the private expression,

precedents in an earlier generation of black conceptual linguistics and political concerns, as

visual artists. Some of Weems’s emblematic well as more recent post-modern ironic

combinations of images with text examine the reflection. At the same time, there has been a

racist and sexist representations presented in the reinvestigation of representation and figuration

culture and through media. Other narratives as forms vdth expressive content. Political art,

explore the rich folklore representing personal in eclipse since the ’3OS, has had a revival in the and shared histories of black culture in America. early 199OS exploring the issues of gender,

race, class and identity. The pluralism embodied

Magdalena Abakanowdcz (b. 1930)' ^ Polish in this exhibition is possible because of femi-

artist, was shaped by her childhood experiences nists’ and internationalists’ insistence to be

during World War II and post-war communist heard in earlier decades. These artists represent

Poland. When she studied at Warsaw Fine Arts six "originals” whose exhibited "visions”

Academy in the early ’5OS, it was dominated by are amongst the most innovative of the last Stalinism and an orthodox Social Realism quarter century. against which she rebelled. Avant-garde Polish Constructivism and utopian idealism from the Notes

prewar period survived in a circle of artists and 1. Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women

“ Artists?,” in Woman. Art, and Power other Essays, intellectuals around Henry Stazewski (l 894 1971, and New York: Harper and Row, 1988, p. 176. 1988). For Abakanowicz, his influence wasn’t

stylistic, but attitudinal; she was inspired by his 2. Lucy Lippard, Prefaces to Catalogues of Women’s Exhibitions,

(Three Parts), I. 1971, "Twenty Six Contemporary Women ideas, his commitment to experimentation and Artists,” in From the Center. Feminist Essays On Women's his uncompromising morality. Nonconformist Art, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976, p. 38. art was barely tolerated during the creative 3. Ibid. p. 44. upheaval of the post-Stalin era, and many artists 4. For a discussion of obstacles presented to women artists fled the continuing communist censorship. earlier in this century see Ellen C. Landau’s article “Tough A ’60s exhibition of Abakanowicz’s paintings Choices: Becoming a Woman Artist, 1900-1970,” and for

and small weavings in Warsaw was closed for its documentation of continuing career discrimination see “Career Markers,” by Ferris Olin and Catherine Brawer, "formalist” tendencies. Encouraged to make a both in Making Their Mark: Women Artists Move into the large weaving to submit to the international jury Mainstream, 1970-85, New York: Abbeville Press, 1989. for the first Biennale International de la Tapisserie in 5. For a selection of political actions and posters document- Switzerland, Abakanowicz’s concerns challenged ing sexism and racism in the art world see Confessions of the prevailing craft tradition of artisans who the Guerrilla Girls, New York: HarperCollins, 1995. wove from others’ cartoons. Abakanowicz 6. Quoted in Lucy Lippard’s, Eva Hesse. New York: NYU

approached weaving as an artist, directly creating Press, 1976, p. 205. works in response to the materials, forms and her imagination, challenging accepted

disciplines in both the craft and art world.

During the ’4OS and ’5OS, the "formalist” approach to art criticism, developed around the Abstract Expressionist and later Minimalist

schools, established those artists within a critical tradition. Dominant for two decades, formalism was successfully challenged by new concerns that allowed for greater experimentation and reinvestigation of content. These diverse concerns eventually became knovm in the ’yos

as "pluralism,” reflecting the lack of a single

dominant artistic ideology. Feminism and international trends have been major influences

in broadening the artistic discourse that took

8 place in exhibitions. Content has expanded to plate I (no. 3) Magdalena Abakanowicz Incarnation Series: Magduwa, Magubi, Magdeta 1988 bronze, unique

25 in. X 25 3/4 in. X 25 in. Courtesy of Marlborough Gallery, New York photo: Robert E. Mates

9

MAGDALENA ABAKANOWICZ

Magdalena Abakanowicz emerged as a powerful floating, dense, vascular web that both suggests

and rebellious artist in the 196OS when her a mask and also stimulates the viewer to supply weavings were exhibited both internationally and imaginatively the absent parts of the figure to in her native Poland. Although sometimes the empty space.

misperceived as "feminine” craft, these monumental webs of coarsely woven, or rich, The cycle of bronze "anonymous” self-por- fleshy fabric, could stretch from ceiling to traits, called /ncarnafions, (pi. I, no. 3a-c) evolved floor, hang pendulously threatening, or create in the ’80s. Bronze suggests the most noble mysterious environments that the viewer was and enduring traditions of sculpture, but

seduced to penetrate. The forms were woven Abakanowicz exposed its primitive and mutative

of startling materials—sisal, rope, hemp, flax, qualities. Creating a mold of her face, wool and horsehair—and, like Les Desert Rouge Abakanowicz filled it with hot wax, producing a

(no. l), the smaller-scale example in this "positive” for the final bronze casting of the exhibition, they could be brightly colored; but porcelain mold. She interrupted the pouring often Abakanowicz worked naturally colored of liquid molten metal into the mold, or other-

material into tactile, darkly looming presences wise altered the hardening process to radically

that filled gallery spaces and challenged simplify the features—an eye socket became a

categories of art. Abakanowicz’s Abakans are shaded hollow, lips the mere continuation of weavings and sculptures, and when produced a cheek bone—and their surfaces were left rough

in large scale, they become installations. and discolored. Recalling Mycenean funeral masks or impaled war trophies, the chins of In the ’yos, Abakanowicz isolated skeins of rope these portrait heads are poised precariously on

as a material that could span distances and bronze uprights.

assume evocative shapes. She felt rope was "like

a muscle devoid of activity... an echo of the The small scale of Incarnations (pi. I, no. 3a-c) banished organic world.’” gives no hint of the authority and monumental-

ity of Heads, Seated Figures, Backs, Embryology (fig- l)-

'Rope is to me the condensation of the problem Katarsis (fig. 2), Crowds and War Games that preoc- of thread, the thread composed of many cupied Abakanowicz in the ’70s and into the

fibers whose number nobody tries to establish,” late ’80s. The Heads, made of sewn burlap stuffed

Abakanowicz said in the early ’70s.’^ It is not with rope, stand roughly three feet tall; the

surprising that in these years she made a few Seated Figures and the simian, headless Backs are

self-portraits comprised of glue-hardened slightly larger. Embryology (fig. l)—stuffed, stitched threads of fibrous linen, either busts or merely ovoid forms in burlap and ranging in size from

the head, like the Self-Portrait (no. 2) of 1976. egg to boulder—evokes wide associations to in the current exhibition. The threads form a organic forms like potatoes, stones and feces.

Katarsis (fig. 2) is comprised of 33 tall, body was like a piece of fabric... it could be androgenous bronze figures ranged in lateral torn apart with ease,” Abakanowicz realized. regiments at the edge of a private sculpture park near Florence. They are sexless and headless; "The capable wise hand suddenly became their backs protrude while their hollow fronts a piece of meat, separate...! had seen dead expose the striations of the mold and projecting bodies, but they somehow had always pre- rods that are normally cut off after the casting served their completeness in front of others. process. Abakanowicz describes this group as We had to wait until the morning to go by "figures of man-trees, man-coffins, revealing carriage to the small town where there was a her surrealist predilection for merging doctor. She survived in spite of a terrible loss morphologies. of blood and excruciating pain. When she

returned from the hospital, maimed, 1 War Games refers to huge timbers stripped attempted to replace for her the hand she had of bark and bound by metal at their stumped lost...l only wanted to make up to her for ends. Supported horizontally by iron-frame the great disappointment of my gender. 1 tables, they suggest mutilated Titans, medieval wanted to be both needed and loved, if only projectiles, both the sword and the plowshare now, to attract her attention and perhaps in giant scale. They condense nature and even praise.”^ aggression.

Where does this art come from? In theme and expression it can be related to the German artists Joseph Beuys and Anselm Kiefer; all three artists create unique and intense responses to the inarticulate horrors of the Second World War.

Yet Abakanowicz’ s series of traumas probably began earlier, when her parents’ indifference drove her to seek solace in the forests surrounding the family’s country estate just outside Warsaw. Her mother preferred her older sister and had counted on Magdalena being a boy. Endowed with a hypersensitivity to nature, curious about its inner workings, privy to the folklore of servants and the romantic tales of her father, a descendant fig. 1 of Ghenghis Khan, Abakanowicz was acutely Magdalena Abakanowicz vulnerable when, in 1939, German tanks Embryology churned into the family estate. 1978-81 burlap, cotton gauze, hemp, rope, nylon and sisal

In 1943* drunk German soldiers shot off her approx. 680 pieces mother’s right arm and mutilated her left hand Collection of the Artist, Marlborough Gallery, as she moved to open the door to them. "The New York

no. 1 no. 2 (p. 19) Magdalena Abakanowicz Magdalena Abakanowicz Les Desert Rouge Self-Portrait 1984 1976 sisal, wall hanging fiber & glue

53 in. X 40 in. 108 3/4 in. X 84 3/4 in. X 60 3/4 in.

Anne &. Jacques Baruch Collection, Ltd., Chicago Anne &, Jacques Baruch Collection, Ltd., Chicago photo: jerry Kobylecky photo: Jerry Kobylecky 21 Abakanowicz and her family fled their home Abakanowicz’s art has been concerned with in advance of the Soviet army and went to surviving war and the Communist regime

Warsaw, where the artist worked in a hospital in Poland; it is not ostensibly concerned with

caring for the wounded. She completed her feminist issues, although vulnerability,

high school education there, and, between fertility, gender ambiguity, the textures and

and I the repressive interior spaces the identifica- 1950 954 > attended of body and an Academy of Fine Arts, where adherence to tion with nature are implicit. Primarily, the

Social Realism was required. art of Magdalena Abakanowicz ties aggressor to victim by building military regiments

After graduation, and in secret, she returned of decapitated androgyns, and it finds sympa-

to the Academy at night to execute her thies between seemingly distinct genera, like own abstract "rain forest” paintings on bed human tissue and fabric, felled trees and war

sheets that she had sewn together. Their amputees. Up until now, it has not expressed formats were huge, as large as the subsequent even a "skeptical, wounded, vigilant” utopia- three-dimensional weavings that attracted nism;® but since the demise of the Soviet

critical acclaim. Union, it may be moving optimistically in that direction.

In the current exhibition. Six Small Figures on a

5/11(1992) (no. 4) seems lighter in mood.

The burlap, resin and wood sculpture is part

of Abakanowicz’s series called iJcg'os?;/ and Sages.

There adults or children sit or stand poised on wood beams that suggest that the ground

might shift. Today in Warsaw it has.

Notes

1. Barbara Rose, Magdalena Abakanowicz. New York:

Marlborough Gallery and Harry N. Abrams, 1994, p. 41.

2. Ibid.

3. Quoted in Michael Brenson, Magdalena Abakanowicz's Sculpture of Enchantment, Exhibition Catalogue,

Marlborough Gallery, 1993, p. 5-6.

4. Todd Brewster, “Art of Anguish," Life, May 1984, p. 120.

5. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Magdalena

Abakanowicz, New York: Abbeville Press, 1982, p. 27. fig. 2

Magdalena Abakanowicz 6. Michael Brenson Lecture at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, April Katarsis 22, 1992, p. 4, 1985 bronze

33 figures Collection of Ciuliano Cori photo: Arthur Starewicz

no. 4 Magdalena Abakanowicz

Six Small Figures on a Slit 1992-93 burlap, resin & wood

74 3/4 in. X 104 1/2 in. X i6 1/8 in. Courtesy of Marlborough Gallery, New York 22

AN INTERVIEW WITH MAGDALENA ABAKANOWICZ

BY MARIANNE LAFRANCE

MLF. As a research psychologist, I have MA. The faces have their origin in my own studied how people use their bodies to inten- face, in impressions taken in soft material.

tionally and unintentionally indicate who a Warm, liquid wax blurs the actual features

person is, their feelings and modes of relat- and creates new ones, capturing them as it ing. From my perspective, people need to use solidifies suddenly. What remains are details

another person’s gestures and expressions of skin, a lip, an eyelash, unexpectedly

as a way to get "inside” a person’s head. Your literal. The wax disfigures, as does the passing

concave figures, such as Seated Figures and of time... [The impression reveals] [m]any

Standing Figures, appear to reflect this concept. existences side by side, together with

Could you describe how you came to produce experiences etched into the skin. 1 look with

sculptures of bodies that look like cross- surprise at what 1 remove from my face, what

sections of human forms, and effectively yields to my fingers. 1 strengthen the film impel viewers to look "inside?” of wax with gauze and canvas to preserve the important details. My face comes between the perceive works of art as well as other MA. We whirl of my thoughts and emotions, and situations to which we are confronted with the people who look at me, to whom 1 speak. our entire bodies. I address myself to people’s The faces of Incarnations [pi. I, no. 3a-c] intellectual [interests] as well as feelings unveil elements of the inner chaos hidden and emotions, to the unconscious and behind the living face.

imagination. .. [For example] the Seated Figures,

shell-like negatives of the bulk of the human MLF. All of your figurative sculptures body... deal with the problem of containing deliberately lack clear gender differentiation, and enclosing. The cycles touch upon the yet, if I had to judge, they appear more question of empty space which can be filled male-like than female-like. Do your figures

by means of our imagination and with the have a gender? sphere of the palpable, the rigid, which is an

incomplete trace of our body’s adherence to MA. Each form is a set of meanings, and

its material surroundings. as a set of meanings it is true. Nothing should be translated into concrete terms,

MLF. Your Faces Which are Not Portraits capture reduced to a single plane of reference.

something universal about human faces. Your This would annihilate the form as a tool of

fiber self-portraits are, on the other hand, cognition My whole work is metaphoric, individual and particular. Could you describe so are also the figures, which are neither

what is the essence of the human face, that is, dressed nor undressed, never literal like

what is it that makes a human face human? shadows or bark fallen off a tree, or... fallen off a mummy. 24 MLF. Several series, including Becalmed MLF. Your art has included abstract fiber

Beings, Katarsis [fig. 2], all four versions of articles, human forms cast in bronze, and

Crowd, consist of a large number of similar stone wheels and wood trunks. Could you but not identical figures arranged in the describe how your work has evolved through same space. Frequently, the arrangements the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. suggest depersonalization and de-individu-

n 1 look back [over the last three alization; sometimes they seem to convey MA. Whe

1 think 1 all the time a sense of community or congregation. decades] worked

problem[s], 1 only expressed Could you describe how you use the spaces around the same them through different materials, media. between the figures as well as their orienta- It was always metaphoric, concerning human tion to express how people relate to each condition in very general terms. other in collectives?

MA. It is almost repulsive to feel another At the very beginning of every creative pro- human being so close as to be a physical cess, whether it is science or art, is mystery. threat. A human being turned into a crowd One of the strongest motives of our time loses his human qualities. A crowd is is the search for explanation, the need to only a thousand times duplicated copy, a explain everything away. Explanation is one repetition, a multiplication. Among such of the means to tame the mystery of art. a great number, one person is extremely Talking about mystery has become indecent. close and at the same time terribly distant. Many people consider it as pure mystification

1 summoned solitude and finally escaped or lack of intelligence. They want to identify inside myself. mystery with a problem and a problem is something which can be reduced into details

I have been born as one of the crowd. TTiis susceptible to explanation. Mystery cannot is a situation for life. One cannot revolt be reduced to details. It is a whole which against it, as we cannot fight against our own embraces us. face which is grown into us or against inborn instincts. Being aware of my dissimilarity, MLF. What do you want to say about your

1 wish to escape from the herd. Many would work that these questions have not addressed? like to do the same. But we immerse in the MA. In everything I do... the constant factor crowd like a grain of sand in the friable and permanent necessity is to search for sands. and reveal secrets inherent in structure, the

structure being the phenomenon which all MLF. Are you a feminist? the organic world on our planet has in

MA. 1 do not feel to be a feminist. Each common, this mystery which can never fully person is a mixture of genes of both genders. be revealed

1 was all my life with my husband and broth- er. 1 worked with various museum directors while exhibiting. 1 never felt that there is a difference between me and men in execution of my art, and its perception by the public.

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