Produced on the occasion of Alina Szapocznikow’s exhibition at Galerie Cogeime, Brussels, 12 November–3 December, 1968.
Alina Szapocznikow was a polish sculptor who as a Holocaust survivor began working in the post-war period in a rather classical, figurative manner, her later experimentation and reconception of sculpture left behind a legacy of provocative objects—at once sexualized, visceral, humorous, and political—that sit uneasily between Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme, and Pop Art. Her tinted polyester-resin casts of her lips and breasts transformed into quotidian objects like lamps or ashtrays, her spongy polyurethane forms often embedded with casts of bellies or live grass, and her construction of resin sculptures that incorporate found photographs remain as remarkably biting, visionary, and original today as when they were first made.
