Alina Shapochnikov/Nairy Baghramyan

Zachęta — National Gallery of Art

curator: Paweł Pyś

Organized on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Alina Szapocznikow's birth, the exhibition introduces her pioneering sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs into dialogue with the latest works of Naira Baghramian.

Organized on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Alina Szapocznikow (1926—73), the exhibition compares her work with the works of the Iranian-German sculptor Naira Baghramian (b. 1971). The exhibition creates a dialogue between two artists who, despite having created in different decades, meet in reflection on the corporeality, sensuality and the experience of illness and transience. Experiments with materials, references to industrial design and a specific sense of humor and irony also remain close to them. The exhibition in Zachęta will be the first in Poland to present a wide selection of works by Baghramian, one of the most important contemporary sculptors of international renown.

Zachęta presents more than thirty works by Alina Szapocznikow from the years 1959—1972, including Leg, a groundbreaking sculpture made of polyurethane and polyester resin, the series Neoplasy and the Herbier series, showing the artist's path from figuration to an increasingly experimental and abstract search for the human body. The dialogue with them includes works by Naira Baghramian from the Scruff of the Neck series, as well as the monumental sculpture Headgear (2016), prepared especially for the Zachęta space. Using forms reminiscent of prostheses and orthodontic appliances, the artist undertakes a reflection on the body, control and how institutions shape our bodily experience of space.

The exhibition shows how two different sculptural practices challenge existing conventions and expand the possibilities of the medium of sculpture.