Magdalena Abakanowicz Exhibition

    

 

A few weeks ago I finally made to the epic exhibition of Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. One of Poland’s most successful artists, Magdalena transformed weaving from two dimensions into sculptures and was a pioneer for art installations. This is the first major exhibition of her work in the UK since 1975. Her Abakans are towering soft woven sculptures and you can walk around them and feel truly immersed in their environment.

As you would expect from Tate Modern, this is an incredibly thorough exhibition. You can watch interviews with Magdalena explaining her ethos, showing her weaving and the sculptures in situ over the decades. A timeline wall explains her artistic journey and gives you a full picture of the amount of her work and dedication. Personally it was really interesting to see how her work developed from more conventional 2 dimensional wall hanging tapestries to her Abakans. It’s also a reminder how colours come in and out of fashion. The rich autumnal colours are now back in vogue so despite their age seem new.

Everyone I know who had visited the exhibition loved it so I was full of high expectations. As we all know art is subjective and while I admire the skill, impact and lets be honest the sheer logistics of weaving pieces on this scale they didn’t make my heart sing. Other people viewing the exhibition seemed captivated but I felt oddly detached from the experience. But isn’t this the point of art? It is all about how you connect with a piece which makes it such a powerful medium. However you feel about Magdalena’s work this is definitely an exhibition to experience but hurry it finishes on May 21st.

 

Magdalena Abakanowicz Every Tangle of Rope and Thread is on until 21st of May at Tate Modern

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/magdalena-abakanowicz