SIX FEMALE ARTISTS WHO CHANGED THE COURSE OF ART HISTORY

To celebrate the International Women’s Day, we would like to highlight some of our previous articles – all about exceptional female artists – true heroins. Thanks to their stubbornness, incredible talent, hard-work, they have changed the history of art forever. Their works and lives full of passion, keep on inspiring next generations of artists.

From Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alina Szapocznikow, Zofia Rydet – three giants who experimented with new forms, to Natalia LL – a brave rebel who went against the flow in the 70s, to younger generation of successful international artists – Alicja Kwade and Aneta Grzeszykowska.

MAGDALENA ABAKANOWICZ: THE FABRIC OF ART

“I believe that the period of Abakanowicz’s work in textiles and the transformation of structures is when she was at her most avant-garde. I think that the most innovative part of her oeuvre is when she crossed the boundaries of the traditional perception of textiles by experimenting with the texture and the structure of fabrics, to finally win for it a full autonomy as a form of art”- said in our conversation – Marta Kowalewska – the curator of Abakanowicz’s exhibition at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź.

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Magdalena Abakanowicz, Abakany [Abakans], Starmach Gallery, Krakow, December 2015 – February 2016, photo M. gardulski, Starmach Gallery

ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW: HUMAN LANDSCAPES REVIEW – EXPERIENCE TRANSLATED THROUGH BODY

“Self Portrait I (1966) is one of rare works by Szapocznikow where she used marble. The torso of the bust is made out of marble, however the head is replaced with a resin, almost abstract, circle. Perhaps marble was too classical, not relevant to modern life, so she decided to combine it with resin, more unstable, degrading, cheap but also colourful, and having flesh-like qualities – wrote Roma Piotrowska in her review of Szapocznikow’s exhibition entitled ‘Human Landscapes’ at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield.

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Alina Szapocznikow, Courtesy The Estate of Alina Szapocznikow / Piotr Stanislawski / Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris © ADAGP, Paris. Exhibition view, THEM, Schinkel Pavillon, 2015
Photo: Timo Ohler

ZOFIA RYDET – DISTANT ROADS

As she used to say herself [about “Sociological Record” series], she did it to “move people a little bit, make them contemplate things”. This series is the reason why Zofia Rydet is often compared with August Sander – the German photographer who managed to present a panorama of the German society from the beginning of the 20th century – wrote Anna Dziuba.

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Zofia Rydet, Endlessly Distant Roads, Roads, 1980 © Zofia Rydet Foundation

NATALIA LL – THE BODY OF ART

The artist wrote in 1980: “The body is unique and each of its gesture, twitches, paroxysms, or spasms of pleasure is unique and inimitable. In a civilisation of gadgets and mass production, the body is a stimulating garden of personalism. Thus Body Art is, in the first place, the joy of manifesting one’s own uniqueness.”[7]

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Natalia LL, Untitled from the series Postconsumer Art, 1975 © lokal_30

ALICJA KWADE – SOMEWHERE ELSE AT THE SAME TIME…

“I perceive my work as a constant development process. Obviously, sometimes I treat a series of works as a finished one, which means that I reached a point from which I am not able to continue creating works in a certain convention, or that I managed to achieve the effect I strived for, so this is the end. Usually, however, one work is a starting point for another one” – reflected Kwade in conversation with the editor Dobromiła Błaszczyk in her studio in Berlin.

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ANETA GRZESZYKOWSKA: ART MEANS MORE THAN COMMUNICATION

An immensely talented artist, Aneta Grzeszykowska, takes photographs, shoots films and creates objects. Her body is her medium. She says: “My body and surroundings play a major role in my work for technical reasons – these are easily accessible and ample components of creation. My work is deeply rooted in the mundane reality. The questions I ask are addressed to me.”

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