Alina Szapocznikow: Body Traces

Jewish sculptor and proto-feminist 
Alina Szapocznikow (1926, Kalisz–
1973, Paris) was one of Poland’s outstanding post-WWII artists. Within two decades, she exchanged the language of classical sculpture with an idiosyncratic lexicon of new shapes, unusual materials, processes and themes that held a dialogue with the contemporary art scene and her own biography. Szapocznikow expanded the definition of sculpture in a deconstructive process of trial and error, while casting parts of her own body directly: an indexical imprint that testifies to the body’s deterioration.