Women Artists

Abakans – The New Humans of Magdalena Abakanowicz

Magda Michalska 17 March 2022 min Read

I can see a group of approximately 250 people, all of them standing. Children and adults. I come closer and I realize they have no heads. I come even closer and I touch one of them. He’s soft but his skin is weirdly coarse… It’s not the beginning to a horror. It’s a description of Abakans, unique sculptures created by Magdalena Abakanowicz.

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Plecy / Backs, 1967-80
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Backs, 1967-80, The National Museum, Wrocław, Poland.

Abakans is a name derived from her surname and it describes her three-dimensional textiles which cease to be just textiles and receive a new life as sculpture. Abakanowicz was a pioneer who transformed the idea of a textile as a two-dimensional object hung on the wall: “The Abakans irritated. They were untimely. There was the French tapestry in weaving, pop-art and conceptual art, and here there were some complicated, huge, magical (forms)…”, she said about Abakans. They may look scary or unnerving because of their deformed shapes and big scale. Especially since they always come in series so they look like an army of aliens.

Magdalena Abakanowicz
Magdalena Abakanowicz, The Crowd, 1988, Mucsarnok Palace of Exhibitions, Budapest, Hungary. Kultura na co dzień.

Abakans are made from sisal fiber which at times is also dyed. Abakanowicz works the material with her bare hands: “There is no tool between me and the material I use. I choose it with my hands. I shape it with my hands. My hands transmit my energy to it. By translating an idea into a shape, they will always pass on something escaping conceptualization. They will reveal the unconscious.”

Magdalena Abakanowicz
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Abakan Red, 1969, Tate Modern, London, UK.

Abakans sometimes take very abstract shapes because as Abakanowicz admitted, she likes to change what she is working on: “I do not like rules and regulations. They are enemies of imagination”. Despite this, her creatures always somehow refer to organic forms and nature. Even the dehumanized works question the nature of humanity, its place in the world and its condition. Meanwhile her series also touch upon the theme of the role of an individual in the crowd.

Recommended

Women Artists

Polina Raiko, The Self-Taught Folk Artist Who Turned Tragedy to Triumph

In 1998, for the first time ever, Polina Raiko (1928-2004), a 69-year-old woman who had spent almost her entire life as a wife, mother, and farmer,...

Adam Oestreich 11 December 2023

Juana Romani Women Artists

Juana Romani: Model, Muse, Painter

Juana Romani (née Giovanna Carolina Carlesimo) was an Italian-born French model and painter working at the turn of the 20th century. Despite...

Natalia Iacobelli 20 November 2023

Women Artists

Anne Vallayer-Coster: A Life of Still Life

The still life genre often seems less interesting than other art forms, so perhaps it is unsurprising that 18th-century French painter Anne...

Catriona Miller 4 December 2023

Latin American Women Modernists: Norah Borges, Vieja quinta, 1966, Museo de Arte Tigre, Tigre, Argentina. Women Artists

10 Women Artists Who Pioneered Modern Art in Latin America

Latin American painters, sculptors, and printmakers were at the forefront of the aesthetic revolution that shook the 20th century. Until recently,...

Kathie Manthorne 9 October 2023