Alina Szapocznikow: From drawing to sculpture

Alina Szapocznikow

Coming to the Hepworth in Wakefield is an Alina Szapocznikow exhibition; 'Human Landscapes', it is open from the 21st October 2017 to the 28th January 2018

Although mainly thought of as a sculptor Szapocznikow was an artist that thought very much through drawing, the book Alina Szapocznikow: From Drawing into Sculpture with a text by Annette Messager, is a wonderful introduction to her work and thinking process.

She was one of the first artists to use modern materials such as polyurethane foam and polyester resin, and she reflects this wide ranging use of materials in her drawings, using felt-tip, ballpoint, crayons, ink, watercolor and monoprinting to visualise her ideas.  Focusing on the body as a site for humor, sexuality and exuberance, Szapocznikow can be seen as someone who worked across several boundaries, aware of Surrealism, Pop Art and other Modernist movements she was though I believe in reality part of a much older tradition, one that artists such as Klara Kristalova belong to. 

Klara Kristalova

There is a North Eastern European tradition that includes the tales of the Baba Yaga and other stories from Slavic folklore. These folk images although not referred to directly by artists such as Szapocznikow or Kristalova, have an image bank associated with them that runs deeply through the unconscious of many artists. From Mark Chagall to Russian lubok prints, there is a particular Slavic imagination that I have always responded to, one that I now realise, I am inextricably linked to. 

Lubok print of Baba Yaga

Mark Chagall

This interest of mine may be because my grandmother was of Polish Jewish heritage, or it may simply be that these are good working Jungian archetypes, it doesn’t really matter, but what I will be doing is going to see Szapocznikow’s exhibition and would recommend her work to any of you interested in how drawing can be used as a way to help visualise ideas in sculpture.

Alina Szapocznikow

I'm returning to this post after actually visiting the exhibition. The work itself is stunning and for those of you interested in drawing there is much to think about. One aspect of her work is the formal invention she takes it through and the move from being a very traditional stone carver to working in new plastic materials is clearly illustrated. Her early drawings demonstrate this formal invention and are interesting as a way of exploring how someone thinking about form in sculpture can save time by drawing. However it was her late drawings that I found the most powerful. They are very simple, and yet in their very simplicity I found great affect. 

The four drawings above are small, about A4 size, made with a red marker. You can see the old creases in the paper from when these drawings were dropped to the floor or simply left somewhere as she moved on. They are not drawings made for display, they are thinking drawings and Szapocznikow is thinking about how cancer has begun to spread in her body. The masses of cells are part of her body and are also taking over the body. They have already invaded her breasts and are now dropping down into her womb. They live in her, like some child of death. I mentioned in my first draft of this post that I suspected that Szapocznikow's Slavic heritage may also be an influence on her work, I'm not sure any more about this, but the fact that when peasants made dolls of the Goddess of Winter, Morana, these were often ritually destroyed, seemed to me to fit perfectly with the broken, destroyed bodies that were found at the core of this exhibition. 

Alina Szapocznikow: Chewing gum sculpture

The making of things formed in the mouth is somehow elemental. There is a section devoted to Szapocznikow's chewing gum sculptures. The bringing of these small chewed mouth casts into the open and having them photographed so beautifully, is a life affirming act, one that shows how much Szapocznikow was aware of the body's life as a sculptural process in its own right. 

From the malleability of the flesh to the sculptural impermanence of bone, Szapocznikow's work is a deep meditation on mortality and as such I would really urge you to visit the exhibition while it is here in West Yorkshire. 

 Find out more about her work here and here and here