The Polish sculptress Alina Szapocznikow (1926-1973) settled in Paris in 1963, in a particularly rich context. She mentored other artists, was friends with art critics, frequented art dealers, visited exhibitions, read widely, and was involved in passionate debates. For a few years while she was there, she continued the work she had begun just after the Second World War, experimenting with representations of the body in volume, using traditional (plaster, stone, or bronze), and new materials (synthetic plastic materials derived from oil). Then, right at the beginning of the 1970s, going against her earlier approach, Szapocznikow began to experiment with conceptual art. The series Photosculptures (1971) presented in Jagna Ciuchta’s exhibition “The Fold of the Cosmic Belly, is particularly representative of this”. Here, the sculptress presents twenty black and white photographs of a chewed-up piece of chewing gum, where her body only exists to provide a sense of scale. The conference will be followed by a conversation with Jagna Ciuchta, which will be an opportunity to discuss Szapocznikow’s career more freely, revealing how her work resonates with this exhibition.
Valentin Gleyze
A graduate of EHESS, Valentin Gleyze is an art historian, art critic and teacher. A doctoral student at the University of Rennes 2, his current research aims to write a cultural history of sculpture linked to Surrealism and Pop in France at the turn of the 1960s, as part of his thesis on the last years in Paris of the sculptor Alina Szapocznikow (1926-1973). He is currently a research engineer at the Musée national d’art moderne, working on a project to reread and enhance the institution’s collections through the prism of queer sexuality.
