Born: June 20, 1930, Falenty, Poland
Summary. Magdalena Abakanowicz is an abstract Polish sculptor. She is notable for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium. Abakanowicz says: "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...".
The entire population of her figures is enough to fill a large public square. They are today over thousand but they have never been seen together. They remain in various museums, public and private collections in different parts of the world. They constitute a warning, a lasting anxiety. Very few images in contemporary art are as emotive and as disturbing
Early days. A descendant of nobility with ancient Tartar roots, Magdalena Abakanowicz was born in Poland, near Warsaw, on her parents estate. The war broke out when she was nine years old.
Her home life was disturbed by the occupation of Poland by Germany and by the Soviet Union. Magdalena Abakanowicz studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, 1950-55.
Work. Her initial work was through dying rope and forming reliefs - but this soon moved into true sculpture. Her early exhibitions include that at the Galerie Kordegarda in 1960 and at the International Tapestry Biennial in Lausanne in 1962. Magdalena Abakanowicz taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, 1979-1990. She also had guest professorships in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Boston, New York City, San Diego, Sydney, Tokio.
She started with soft and pliable objects that were rough to the touch. First came the Abakans (1966-75), so-called after her own name. These enormous three dimensional hanging structures, woven form a variety of fibers, had tails, openings and encrustations. Other soft works included Heads (1975) Backs (1976-80) Embryology (1980)- a sequence of some 800 stuffed potato-shaped forms of varying sizes, covered with sacking and occasionally spilling their innards, and Catharsis (1986) thirty-three larger than life size, bronze figures, for the Giuliano Gori collection, near Pistoia,Italy. .
Gradually the objects became hard but continued to be made of fragile materials. Shy by nature and lonely in the creative process, she has made her contact with people through over one hundred personal exhibitions which she arranged herself. She has also exhibited paintings, drawings, and sculptures in other media internationally and has been widely imitated in Europe and the U.S.
Her work is in many major public museums. Among other in: Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, National Galery of Art, Washington, DC, Ludwig Museum in Köln, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. Subsequently she continues to make works in space. She made bronze figures, human heads, animal and dragon heads, and Hand-Like Trees (1994-1997). This series is still in the process of completion. Apart from bronze, she used tree trunks with steel cuffs for her cycle of War games (1989 - 90). She received large outdoor commissions in Italy, Japan, S.Korea (Dragon Space in Seoul’s Olympic Park 1988) , Israel, Lithuania (Space of Unknown Growth in Europos Parkas Open Air Museum) and in other countries. She built out of bronze or stone large "spaces to contemplate”. Each of her forms figurative or non - figurative is rich in its own history. Abakanowicz changed the meaning of sculpture from object to look at into space to experience.
In the 1990s Magdalena Abakanowicz designed a model of an ecologically-oriented city, and has also choreographed dance. She lives and works in Warsaw.
Honors and awards
1962 Biennale Internationale de la Tapisserie Lausanne, Switzerland
1965 Grand Prix at Sao Paolo Biennale, Sao Paolo, Brazil
1974 Doctorate honoris causa from the Royal College of Art, London, England
1979 Gottfried von Herder Prize, Vienna, Austria
1982 Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Prize, New York, New York, USA
1992 Doctorate honoris causa from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
1993 Award for Distinction in Sculpture, granted by the Sculpture Center, New York, , New York, USA
1994 Membership in the Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany
1996 Elected honorary member of the American Academy of Art and Letters
1997 Doctorate honoris causa from the Academy of Fine Arts, Lodz, Poland
1997 Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts, Mexico City, Mexico
1998 Commander Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta
1998 Membership in the Sachsische Akademie der Kunste, Dresden
1999 Officier de L' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Paris, France
2000 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree, Pratt Institute, New York, New York, USA
2000 Orden pour le merite fur Wissenschaften und Kunste, Berlin, Germany
2000 Cavaliere nell Ordine Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana
2000 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree, Pratt Institute, New York, , New York, USA
2000 Visionaries! Award granted by American Craft Museum, New York, New York, USA
2001 Doctorate honoris causa from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2002 Doctorate honoris causa from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
2002 Doctorate honoris causa from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland
2005 Award for the entire Creative Activity granted by the Polish Minister of Culture 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award from The International Sculpture Center
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