Tag Archives: Piotr Stanisławski

FUTURE BODIES FROM A RECENT PAST

Contemporary sculpture is populated by hybrid techno-bodies. But such connections between technology and the body reach far back into modernity. The symposium explores these lines of reference: How can sculpture be thought of and defined in relation to technological developments? How, in turn, does sculpture relate to changing concepts of the body and corporeality? What are the consequences for a theory of contemporary sculpture? These and other questions form the focus of the discussion with leading theorists from various disciplines.*

Museum Brandhorst presents the online symposium FUTURE BODIES FROM A RECENT PAST—SCULPTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE BODY SINCE THE 1950S. Participants include Marta Dziewanska, Louis Chude-Sokei, N. Katherine Hayles, Namiko Kunimoto, Jeannine Tang, Ursula Ströbele, and many others.

See link below to register.

FUTURE BODIES FROM A RECENT PAST—SCULPTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE BODY SINCE THE 1950S*

Museum Brandhorst

Thursday, January 21 through Saturday, January 23.

From top: Mark Leckey, UniAddDumThs, 2014–ongoing, detail from the section Man, installation view Mark Leckey: UniAddDumThs at Kunsthalle Basel, 2015, photograph by Philipp Hänger, image © Mark Leckey, courtesy of the artist and Kunsthalle Basel; Alina Szapocznikow, Untitled (Fetish VII), 1971, Ursula Hauser Collection, Switzerland, image © 2020 VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, courtesy of the Estate of Alina Szapocznikow, Piotr Stanislawski, Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris, and Hauser & Wirth; BINA48 (Breakthrough Intelligence via Neural Architecture 48), robotic face combined with chatbot functionalities, owned by Martine Rothblatt’s Terasem Movement, modeled after Rothblatt’s wife, image © 2010 Hanson Robotics; Albert Renger-Patzsch, Marmor an der Lahn (Metamorphit), 1963, plate 55, Gestein, 1966, image © 2020 Albert Renger-Patzsch and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; David Smith, Forging series of sculptures in progress, Bolton Landing Dock, Lake George, New York, circa 1956, image © 2020 Estate of David Smith and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; Tishan Hsu, Autopsy, 1988, installation view Tishan Hsu: Liquid Circuit at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2020, private collection, image © Tishan Hsu, courtesy of the artist and the Hammer Museum; Aleksandra Domanović, production photograph of The Future Was at Her Fingertips, 2013, image © Aleksandra Domanović, courtesy of the artist.

ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW — TO EXALT THE EPHEMERAL

My work has its roots in sculpture. For years I threw myself into studying problems of balance, volume, space, shadow, and light…

I took stock of the awareness of our time. I used my knowledge of the craft, my intuition, and my intelligence to note with increased clarity the poverty of my methods in comparison to modern techniques. I have been conquered by the hero-miracle of our age, the machine. To it belong beauty, revelations, testimonies, the recording of history. To it belong, in the end, truthful dreams and public demand…

Despite everything, I persist in trying to fix in resin the traces of our body: I am convinced that of all the manifestations of the ephemeral, the human body is the most vulnerable, the only source of all joy, all suffering, and all truth, because of its essential nudity, is as inevitable as it is inadmissible on any conscious level.Alina Szapocznikow, March 1972, Malakoff*

TO EXALT THE EPHEMERAL—ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW, 1962–1972, a comprehensive exhibition of work by this essential artist, is on view in Manhattan for one more week.

TO EXALT THE EPHEMERAL—ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW, 1962–1972

Through December 21.

Hauser & Wirth New York

32 East 69th Street, New York City.

February 7 through May 7, 2020.

Hauser & Wirth London

23 Savile Row, London.

*Alina Szapocznikow“Mon œuvre puise ses racines…,” March 1972, (courtesy Alina Szapocznikow Archive, Piotr Stanisławski, National Museum in Kraków), in To Exalt the Ephemeral: Alina Szapocznikow, 1962–1972, exhibition catalog (Zürich: Hauser & Wirth, 2019).

See Griselda Pollock, “Traumatic Encryption: The Sculptural Dissolutions of Alina Szapocznikow,” in After-affects / After-Images: Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the Virtual Feminist Museum (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013).

To Exalt the Ephemeral—Alina Szapocznikow, 1962–1972, Hauser & Wirth, New York, October 29–December 21, 2019, from top: Cendrier de célibataire I (The Bachelor’s Ashtray I), 1972, colored polyester resin and cigarette butts; Noga (Leg), 1962, plaster; Pamiątka I (Souvenir I), 1971, polyester resin, fiberglass, and photographs; Iluminowana (Illuminated Woman), 1966–1967, plaster, colored polyester resin, electrical wiring, and metal; Forma II, 1964–1965, unfired pink clay; Tumeur (Tumor), 1970, colored polyester resin and gauze; Szapocznikow in 1968, photograph by Roger Gain; Lampe-bouche (Illuminated Lips), 1966, colored polyester resin, electrical wiring, and metal; Sculpture-lampe, colored polyester resin, electrical wiring, and metal; Autoportrait, 1971, polyester resin and gauze; Man with an Instrument, 1965, cement, car part, and black patina; To Exalt the Ephemeral installation view, 2019; Szapocznikow with Envahissement de tumeurs (Invasion of Tumors) at her Malakoff studio, 1970; Sans titre (No Title), 1964–1965, original plaster; Ventre-coussin (Belly Cushion) , 1968, polyurethane foam, and Ventre, 1968, plaster, installation view, Alina Szapocznikow Malakoff studio, Paris, 1968. Artwork photographs by Fabrice Gousset, except To Exalt the Ephemeral installation view by Genevieve Hanson, Noga (Leg) by Thomas Barratt, and Forma II by Filip Vanzieleghem. All artwork by Alina Szapocznikow; images courtesy and © 2019, ProLitteris, Zürich, ADAGP, Paris, the Estate of Alina Szapocnikow, Piotr Stanislawski, Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris, and Hauser & Wirth.