"Magdalena Abakanowicz was born to aristocratic parents in 1930 and raised on their country estate. She came of age against the tumultuous background of World War II and its aftermath. Today she is revered for her uncompromising, individualistic vision developed in her native Poland under the hostile eyes of the repressive Communist regime that was in power for most of her adult life. She has personally witnessed the worst of humanity's instinct for destructive behavior and has made art that unflinchingly presents the human condition. She had, by the 1960s, gained the beginning of an international reputation as a sculptor in soft materials with the creation of monumental environments called Abakans." "She changed sculpture from "object to look at" into "space to experience". Monumental, powerful compositions in bronze or stone, iron or concrete have been created for specific locations and are permanently installed as environments accessible to people." "Magdalena Abakanowicz also draws and paints, has choreographed dances performed by Japanese and Polish youngsters, and has designed Arboreal Architecture - buildings as "vertical gardens" - to be used as part of an extension to the principal axis in the city of Paris." "She has been determined from the very beginning to build her own vision of reality. She has never followed trends, all her creations being dictated by her imagination."--BOOK JACKET.

Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930-2017) was a Polish artist who revolutionised the use of woven forms in art. This book reveals her impact on environmental sculpture, as well as her deeply personal interests in natural phenomena and global cultures

The exhibition "La Corte del Rey Arturo" (The Court of King Arthur) presented in the Crystal Palace was a project that reflects Abakanowicz's childhood experience in the Polish forests and lakes where, according to her own words, there were strange powers with magical force of the local popular religious festivals. The exhibition catalog combines, in a retrospective way, a review of Abakanowicz' s previous work with the series that she completed for this occasion. This publication includes three essays of the specialists in her work: Mariusz Hermansdorfer, Karoline Hubner and Mary Jane Jacob.

Publisher Description

The third in a series of exhibition catalogs on the human body in contemporary art

Half theWorld traces the ways in which women artists deftly transformed the language of sculpture to invent radically new forms and processes that privileged studio practice, tactility and the artist's hand. The volume seeks to identify the multiple strains of proto-feminist practices, characterized by abstraction and repetition, which rejected the singularity of the masterwork and rearranged sculptural form to be contingent upon the way the body moved around it in space. The catalogue begins in the immediate post-war era, with the first section spanning the late 1950s through the 1950s. Featuring historically important predecessors including Ruth Asawa, Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Claire Falkenstein and Louise Nevelson, this section examines abstraction based on the human figure and the influence of the unconscious. The second section covers the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, and includes Magdalena Abakanowicz, Lynda Benglis, Heidi Bucher, Gego, François Grossen, Eva Hesse, Sheila Hicks, Marisa Merz, Mira Schendel, Michelle Stuart, Hannah Wilke, and Jackie Winsor, a generation of post-minimalist artists who ignited a revolution in their use of process-oriented materials and methods. In the 1980s and 1990s, the period explored in the third section, artists Phyllida Barlow, Isa Genzken, Cristina Iglesias, Liz Larner, Anna Maria Maiolino, Senga Nengudi, and Ursula von Rydingsvard moved beyond singular, three-dimensional objects toward architectonic works characterized by repetition, structure, and design. The final section is comprised of post-2000 works by artists Karla Black, Abigail DeVille, Sonia Gomes, Rachel Khedoori, Lara Schnitger, Shinique Smith, and Jessica Stockholder, artists who create installation-based environments, embracing domestic materials and craft as an embedded discourse.