In the mid-1970s, Magdalena Abakanowicz begins working on her first series of figurative sculptures: Seated Figures (1974–1984) and Backs (1976–1980). She is already a well-established artist: her abstract, mysterious abakans have won her international awards and opened possibilities for distant travels. She is represented by galleries in Switzerland and the United States. On her trips, she encounters diverse cultures, philosophies, and lifestyles and her focus shifts to the universal issues of man’s place in the world and relation with nature. She departs from weaving but remains faithful to natural materials as she ventures to find new expressive means reflective of this new focus. She makes figures of thick jute sackcloth soaked in resin to make it malleable and hold shape once the resin has hardened. Like with the abakans, the material is recyclable: used, worn-off sacks for packing potatoes, wheat or coffee. The Backs embody her concern with the human condition which would continue through the remainder of her career.
During this period, the artist’s first encounter with Mariusz Hermansdorfer, director of the National Museum in Wrocław, who would in time create the world’s largest collection of works by Magdalena Abakanowicz. On his initiative, in 1986 the Museum acquires the important works presented at the Venice Biennale in 1980: Embryology (over 200 elements created over the period 1978–1988) and 26 figures from the Backs series.
The entire series comprises 80 sculptures depicting hunched backs of seated figures: they are hollowed-out empty shells, headless trunks with abbreviated limbs. The series reveals the artist’s fascination with the group’s structure and multiplication vs individuality. Already in the early 1970s, Abakanowicz created the Environment of similar abakans (the National Museum in Wrocław has fifteen pieces) but the effect of multiplication was not yet as powerful. It is the series of modular figures, like Backs and Seated Figures, and also the later Crowd, which get to the core of the tension between the group and individual.
Backs can be interpreted in multiple ways: some see them as praying participants in a religious ceremony, others as a group of prisoners awaiting punishment – and all these readings are correct. Abakanowicz uses the total and timeless model of the shell of a seated person in other contexts as well, for example in Cage (1985), yet another work in the collection of the National Museum in Wrocław which is often regarded as a metaphor for the fear and enslavement experienced by Poles under martial law. Cognizant of the expressive potential of Backs, in 1993 Abakanowicz revisits the motif of solemn group of seated figures in her monument for Hiroshima: Space of Becalmed Beings featuring forty bronze sculptures. “Six thousand two hundred forty one citizens of Hiroshima signed a petition to the municipal authorities asking for my sculpture. I have created for them a group of forty figures (very important to me personally): shells of human backs, larger-than-life, simplified, head less and armless trunks. They form a permanent installation on the terrace of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, on a hill hovering above the metropolis. They overlook the city spreading below. I was told that people had sought refuge from the atomic hell on this hill and died there. I was told that their cries and moaning could sometimes be heard in silence of the night. I was told that running museum lifts would sometimes stop unexpectedly and repeat these sounds." (Gajewska, Halina, 2013, s. 10) At the National Museum in Wrocław, Backs remain poignantly silent.
[Iwona Dorota Bigos]
This website uses cookies so that our service can work better. For more information and to personalise your preferences, click ‘Settings’. You can change your preferences at any time and you can also withdraw your consent to the use of cookies on the site below.
By sliding the toggle to the right, you activate a specific consent. By sliding the toggle to the left, you deactivate that consent.
Necessary (2)
Name
Supplier
Objective
Expiry date
Type
Name:
cookie Consent
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
Stores information about the user's cookie preferences, consent or refusal.
Expiry date:
6 months
Type:
HTTP
Name:
PHPSESSID
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
The PHPSESSID file is a PHP native file and allows sites to remember session state data. On the Site, it is used to establish a user session and transmit state data using temporary cookies commonly known as session cookies. As the PHPSESSID cookie has no set expiry date, it disappears when the browser is closed.
Expiry date:
Closing the browser
Type:
Technical cookie
Statistics (4)
Name
Supplier
Objective
Expiry date
Type
Name:
_ga
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
Registers a unique identifier which is used to generate statistical data about how the visitor uses the site.
Expiry date:
2 years
Type:
HTTP
Name:
_gid
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
It is used to store information about how visitors use the website and helps to create an analytical report on how the website is performing.
Expiry date:
1 day
Type:
HTTP
Name:
_ga_GJZ5NZ7YE3
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
Used to distinguish between individual users during their visits to the site. It stores a unique user identifier, which allows Google Analytics to track repeat visits and analyse how users use the site over time. This helps to better optimise the content and functionality of the site.
Expiry date:
2 years
Type:
HTTP
Name:
_ga_59B58CLBBD
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
Used to store and track data about user activity within a specific session. Enables analysis of user traffic on the site in Google Analytics to help administrators understand how users are interacting with the site. It is part of Google Analytics 4 and allows user sessions to be measured at a sub-domain level.
Expiry date:
2 years
Type:
HTTP
Functional (2)
Name
Supplier
Objective
Expiry date
Type
Name:
contrast
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
Stores information about the user's preference for high contrast mode on the website. Its purpose is to adjust the colour scheme of the site to increase the readability of content for people with visual problems or users who prefer higher visual contrast.
Expiry date:
7 days
Type:
Functional cookie
Name:
textsizestyle
Supplier:
National Museum in Wrocław
Objective:
It stores information about a user's preferences for font size on a website. Its main purpose is to adapt and maintain the selected text size (e.g. enlarged or reduced) on subsequent visits to the website, thus improving accessibility and user comfort, especially for people with poorer eyesight.
