Viewing Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope

Magdalena Abakanowicz’s bold experimentations with space, form and organic materials reframed the possibilities of sculpture for good. This exhibition brings together 26 of her radical three-dimensional works, otherwise known as Abakans, in a forest-like display alongside early textiles pieces and little-known drawings.

Honouring the artist’s wish for them to be seen and experienced as living works, visitors will weave through a fibrous sculptural landscape. As you meander through the forest of towering forms, you’ll encounter some of her most ambitious pieces from the 1960s and 70s, including the monumental Abakan Red (1969) and Abakan – Situation Variable II from 1971, which incorporates rope, spilling from the sculpture onto the floor.

It’s a rare opportunity to appreciate Abakanowicz’s pioneering vision as well as the close connection between these raw forms and both the human body and earth around us. ‘It is from fibre that all living organisms are built, the tissue of plants, leaves and ourselves,’ Abakanowicz once said. ‘Our nerves, our genetic code, the canals of our veins, our muscles. We are fibrous structures.’