Exhibition Guide: Alina Szapocznikow
For our first solo exhibition devoted to Alina Szapocznikow since undertaking representation of the artist’s estate in May 2018, we focus on the last ten working years of Alina's life, from 1962 to 1972. The ‘To Exalt the Ephemeral’, comes from the 1972 manifesto that she wrote, summing up her goals and challenges as a sculptor.
The exhibition begins with ‘Noga’ (‘Leg’) her first body cast, ‘Untitled’, the first cast of her mouth. It then moves through the scope of her experiments with different materials: bronze, resin, cement, car parts, polyurethane, and photography. The exhibition displays her interest in Pop Art and Surrealism, as well as her formal investigations of sculpture. The show concludes with the ‘Herbier’ series—the last series she produced, and casts of her own face that function as death masks. The exhibition is organized by explorations of themes, and materials, rather than a direct chronology.
