The famous Abakans, which have revolutionised the textile art and launched the artist’s international career, are now on show at the National Museum in Wrocław. After many years, the artist has agreed to present them as part of the Gallery of Contemporary Polish Art.
The National Museum in Wrocław has the largest collection of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s works in Europe (including the Alterations project comprising such famous series as Embryology, Seated Figures, Anonymous Portraits, and The Crowd). The Museum’s holdings also include her now world famous, stunning early Abakans. Started in the 1960s, the Abakans soon revolutionised the textile art and brought the artists international recognition. She departed from the traditional two-dimensional approach and her textile pieces first became reliefs and then evolved into three-dimensional sculptures and monumental installations. Her Composition of White Forms, shown at the Textile Biennale in London in 1962, stirred the art world: by introducing elements of relief into a flat structure, it presaged a global revolution. In her subsequent works, Abakanowicz would systematically break-up the flat surface, introduce new materials and experiment with weaving techniques and used wool, a most traditional fibre, in innovative ways. She was inspired by biology and her textile sculptures arranged together appear to form the interior of some mysterious jungle or cave with stalagmites and stalactites, exuding fascinating eroticism. In 1965, the Abakans won the Gold Medal at the Sao Paulo Biennale and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s world career was launched. The Abakans deposited by the artist with the National Museum in Wrocław have been featured at many retrospective exhibitions of Magdalena Abakanowicz all over the world, recently in Japan and Hungary. On the initiative of Mariusz Hermansdorfer, Director of the National Museum in Wrocław, the artist has recently consented to present the Abakans as part of the Museum’s permanent exhibition of Contemporary Polish Art. The Magdalena Abakanowicz Gallery at the National Museum in Wrocław also features her Seated Figures and the fragment of The Crowd.
