Abakanowicz show opens in Warsaw

Photo: PAP/Jacek Turczyk

“The majority of the works shown here have never been exhibited anywhere before,” enthused Magdalena Grabowska, an assistant to the artist, during a press viewing at Warsaw's House of Plastic Arts Gallery.

Abakanowicz, whose sculptures are now prized parts of the collections of such institutions as Paris's Pompidou Centre and New York's Metropolitan Museum, won international recognition in the 1960s.

She is chiefly known for her uncanny 'Abakan' sculptures, which are woven from fabric according to a technique invented by the artist herself.

Besides revealing some rarely glimpsed sculptures, the Warsaw show also unveils a series of oil paintings and drawings by the artist.

Abakanowicz, who has some Tatar ancestry, was born in 1930 into a Polish noble family.

“As a child, I built objects to safeguard my reticence and loneliness,” the artist once wrote.

“When guests came, I fled. The objects I left behind were meant to replace me. They were supposed to respond to the absurd questions that children are usually asked.”

The exhibition “Abakanowicz? Abakanowicz!” runs until 2 February. (nh)