keepin’ warm in a cold house
Alina Szapocznikow, Paysage humain (du cycle « Paysages humains, 1971-1972, 9 2/5 × 12 2/5 in24 × 31.5 cm
Alina Szapocznikow
Alina Szapocznikow, Autoportrait I, 1966, Marble and polyester resin, 41 x 30 x 20 cm / 16 1/8 x 11 13/16 x 7 7/8 in
Alina Szapocznikow (Polish, 1926-1973)
Popiersie (Bust) - marble, bronze - 1966
Rzeźba biologiczna I (Biological Sculpture I) (2 views) - Dalmatian marble - 1963
Lampe-Bouche (Illuminated Mouths) - colored polyster, metal, electrical - 1966
Autoportrait I (Self Portrait I) - cast polyester resin, Carrara marble - 1966
Noga (Leg) - Swedish black granite, bronze - 1967
Ventre coussin (Belly Cushion) (four views) - polyurethane foam, polyester resin - 1968
Grands Ventres (Big bellies) - Carrara marble - 1968
Breast Lamp III (Fetish series IX) - assemblage, polyester breast cast, plastic mesh, electric light - 1970
Cendrier de Célibataire I (The Bachelor’s Ashtray I) - colored polyester resin and cigarette butts - 1972
In a statement about her work, made in March 1972, Alina wrote that she made “objets maladroits” – awkward objects. She had begun her life in art studying the problems of “balance, volume, space shadow and light” and found that to be a “thwarted vocation”. She had found her mature voice through her casts of the body with which “I try to fix the fleeting moments of life, its paradoxes and absurdity”. A “fixing” that she knew was doomed, the body frail and mortal.
The belly is a plaster cast of the belly of Arianne Raoul-Auval, Roland Topor’s fiancée at the time. This cast became the “source material” for a number of subsequent sculptures, which the artist made from various materials: plaster, marble (Big Bellies), polyurethane. Experiments with the latter material led to the creation of multiple Belly-pillows, which Szapocznikow intended to go into mass production. In 1968, the artist made over 100 such Pillows-cushions, wanting them to go “under thatched roofs” - to homes and kindergartens.
“My gesture is addressed to the human body, ‘that complete erogenous zone,’ to its most vague and ephemeral sensations. I want to exalt the ephemeral in the folds of our body, in the traces of our passage.” – Alina Szapocznikow, March 1972
Alina Szapocznikow with Grands Ventres (Big bellies) - Carrara marble - 1968
“FIANCÉE FOLLE MARIÉE”
ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW // 1971
[polyester resin, gauze and newspaper | 6.9 x 18.9 x 6.3″]
Alina Szapocznikow (1926-1973) The Drive (colored polyester resin & metal structure, 1967)
Boethius - De consolatione philosophiae (c. 1476)
Alberto Biasi, Dinamica 62, 1973, mixed media
Swizzle Sticks, Alexander Calder, 1936, MoMA: Painting and Sculpture
James Thrall Soby Bequest
Size: 56 3/8 x 45 5/8 x 48 ½" (143.2 x 115.8 x 123.1 cm)
Medium: Painted wood panel with steel wire, wood, and lead
Tracey Emin
Edwin Noble
Robert Rauschenberg
illustration from magazine Wiener Mode, 1919
Happy 81st birthday to Moe Brooker, who was born in Philadelphia in 1940. Brooker’s interest in the relationship between music and visual art is reflected in the rhythmic patterns, layered color harmonies, and sense of movement and improvisation in his abstract imagery.
And Then … You Just Smile,” 2003, by Moe Brooker © Moe Brooker
V J Stanek, A sea urchin of the species Encope grandis from the ocean near the Antilles, 1968.
From “The pictorial encyclopedia of the animal kingdom”, 1972.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CUNoz27gPN6/?utm_medium=tumblr
“Horizons” by Armando Veve