Alina Szapocznikow: The Box

In The Box, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is delighted to present a significant work from the early 1970s by Polish artist Alina Szapocznikow. Griselda Pollock, acclaimed feminist art historian and Director of Research at the University of Leeds, will be writing a new text to accompany the project.

Regarded as one of the most significant post-war sculptors of the 20th century, Szapocznikow is renowned for producing tinted, polyester casts of the human body characterised by both sensuality and trauma. During the late 1960s and early 70s, the artist made a series of fetishistic ‘lamps' and utilitarian objects that piece together breasts and mouths cast from the artist's own body. In Sculpture - Lampe VIII (1970), Szapocznikow illuminates the underside of the lips with a light bulb, lending the work a seductive, yet eerie, glow. Sitting atop the lamp, a breast serves as a pink beret, adding to the risqué nature of the work. However, the fragmented nature of Szapocznikow’s sculptures arguably speaks to the distress which pervaded her life. Having been interned in several concentration camps during WWII, the artist was to face further adversity when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1969, subsequently dying at the age of 47.