The Lamp

The most prominent element in Alina Szapocznikow’s 1967 Lamp is female lips. The sculpture is a casting of her own body made of colorful polyester and plastic. The functional purpose of the object was placed in ironic brackets by endowing it with an extremely intimate, organic form. The light bulb hidden inside the sculpture tints the lips scarlet red, which, in combination with the head that is slightly tilted to the right and the barely visible, closed eye, connotes sensuality and eroticism.

We can only see the bottom part of the face, which melts aways into a formless mass that resembles spreading cancer tumors – a running theme in Szapocznikow’s late work. The Lamp series was created by the artist around the time when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Similarly to other works from that period they comprise a narrative about the fragmentization and disintegration of the human body. One can see in it both a record of worsening illness and echoes of War World II, which Szapocznikow never wanted to talk about. 

Alina Szapocznikow is one of the heroes of the “Perspective of Adolescence” exhibition, which can be viewed until the end of September in the Silesian Museum in Katowice. The curator, Anda Rottenberg, juxtaposed the work of the sculpturer with the output of Andrzej Wróblewski and Andrzej Wajda. The experience that binds the three artists together is adolescence spent during World War II, which left a permanent mark on their artistic sensibilities.

Paweł Świerczek

P.S. Here you can read a story of another woman sculptor - Louise Nevelson.