The eerie bronze sentinels march in a quiet procession in Magdalena Abakanowicz’s new series of figures and figurative fragments. Early on in her career Abakanowicz was a painter, then she became famous for her organic textile reliefs that were expressive, monumental, and evocative of the human condition. Her use of natural materials was in response to the dire economic conditions in Poland, but her eloquent use of these materials imbued her textiles with great presence. Gradually, during the 1970s, these textile forms morphed into plaster figures covered with burlap, sisal, glue and resin, which had a depth and poetic sensibility.

In 1983, Abakanowicz first cast her work in aluminum, and made her first bronze the following year. To cast her bronze figures, she makes a prototype in styrofoam. The prototype is cut, cast in sections, welded and then the surfaces are refined by Abakanowicz.

In her early bronzes, Abakanowicz created diverse forms that still relate to her organic sensibility. In Katarsis (33 Figures), (1985) a series of large-scale bronze guardians march down the hill, abstract but still human. Those figures were embedded with a lingering presence that evokes ancient nomads frozen in time. Ancestor, from the War Games Series (1989), echoes a giant medieval weapon, but maintains a spiritual depth that responds to man’s inhumanity towards man. Atypical in that it is not even abstractly referencing the figure, this piece has the archetypal organic underpinnings that inform all of her work.

Abakanowicz’s work delves directly into the human sensibility. While mute, her figures resound with a raw emotion and power that is full of psychological tension. While many of her figurative groups are monumental, here she brings down the scale, as in the poetic Smiling Butterfly. All of her works recall classical Greek and Roman sculpture, and when fragmentary, like this head, they have a particularly evocative relationship to the remnants of antiquity. Cast on a long and slender vertical pole, the noble head floats through the air in a disembodied state. The bronze surface is roughhewn and expressive, and the features are strong, lending the head depth and personality.