Art is a state of being
You are born with the capacity
to integrate your energy into objects
to create
objects that never existed before
They can enlarge the knowledge of man
about his planet
about his environment
about his problems
Magdalena Abakanowicz
is one of the
most well-known
Polish artists of the 20th century
From the mid 1960s or late 1960s
she started to make what we now
refer to as Abakans
as being these really large
big-scale pieces that
could almost enfold you
that you could walk inside
that are like cocoons or coats
or tents
or a kind of habitat
that you could curl up inside
The critics at the time didn't
really know what to make
of this new form of weaving of
tapestry making
They didn't know
what they were looking at
Was this sculpture?
Was this painting?
Was this weaving?
Was it tapestry?
And so
they coined the term Abakans
to talk about her work because it seemed
to kind of defy all other categorisation
I think she's one of the only artists
that I can think of that had
a term coined after her name
Her subject matter
Is really about humanity, about war
about our existence as individuals
My words
are
in the objects I'm making
this is my speech
this is my language
and it's the only language
with which I can express myself freely
She grew up
in an aristocratic family
and they spent a lot of time
in a large manor house
in the countryside in Poland
Her father was
descended according to the
artist
from Genghis Khan
So Abakan
meaning son of Khan
When the artist was
nine years old
the Second World War
broke out
the Germans invaded Poland
and Abakanowicz was very traumatised
but she never spoke of herself
as being a victim
instead she spoke about how these
circumstances formed something
of her spirit
her energy and her imagination
and drove her
to make work which is in many
ways very heroic
She
originally trained
in painting with weaving as an option
at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Warsaw
She found quite quickly after
graduating
that she wanted to use textile as a way
to express
ideas and concepts and energy
and emotion
Not really just as
something to be used
or something functional within the home
So for her
fibre and textiles
became a sculptural medium
And she was really drawn to
using things like horse hair as well as
animal fibres
like wool and cotton
and other plant fibres
She said: "we are all fibrous structures"
she was very interested
in the relationship between
fibre and the body
and fibre and the world that we live in
Weaving of course is
something that is
structured with a grid
the warp threads on the loom
you weave across weft threads
and of course weavers therefore
stick to this rectangular format
Abakanowicz started to explore ways
of making works
which would have a rounded shape
and then taking those
works off the wall
she made it herself
she made it with her own hands
It wasn't following a particular design
it was loose, it was improvisatory
and this was something
that was very important to her
She realised that she could set up
these sculptures in the gallery, in space
in relation to each other
to create what she called
a situation or environment
A lot of the experience
of encountering these works
has to do with the way
that they make you feel
There's something about their material
softness
their energy as matter and material
that relates to the
body in a certain way
they have a really strong smell
Clearly she was drawn to
a quite dark palette of colours
From certain sides
they look like they're just
dense matte black
you know, they suck in the light
but then you see on closer inspection
where they pick up the light
you can see that
there are kind of shades
of aubergines, of different
browns and reds
that come through in the fibres
She would also use
pieces of trailing rope
almost like sinews of a living structure
I learn a lot from
people who visit my exhibition
about my work
It's my expression
but I couldn't put it into words
that's why I do it
They put it into words
So I learn from them
When I look at the Abakans
often to me they feel
very much like
a kind of living being
with their own life
they might catch the
breeze and turn
or they really feel
like these kinds of hairy beasts
and she talked about how
they had a feeling for her of safety
that she was recreating
this feeling that she had
as a young child
in the Polish forests nestling inside
a hollow tree trunk
And then the red Abakan
and it's become quite an iconic work
this big red, almost vaginal shape
confronting you like a big statement
Abakanowicz spoke about how
she didn't mind that people
would read these bodily associations
into the works
In 1969 Abakanowicz
collaborated with an experimental
filmmaker and musician
and she took her works out
actually into the landscape
The artist has the works
somehow magically
installed out in this landscape
It almost looks like
it could be a desert
or it could be the surface of the moon
They look like kind of magically
floating against this
beautiful white sand
It's quite mesmerising
Always
her ambitions were to make
work which was environmental
which spoke about
man's relationship to the land
to the environment
to history
to memory
All of these things
her works are quite heroic in many ways
This is certainly not domestic textiles
She wanted you to
feel them in a bodily sense
She wanted to
create a kind of encounter with
these things