10 Standing Figures is representative of the figurative work of Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz as it has evolved over the past 30 years. Abakanowicz has created a compelling and highly emotional body of work, largely drawn from her personal experience of World War II and its aftermath. She is best known for her ‘crowds’ of headless, rigidly posed figures whose anonymity and repetitious presentation have been regarded as the artist’s personal response to totalitarianism.
These sculptures are at once beautiful and unsettling, reminders of the fragile nature of the human condition. The art of Abakanowicz stands out as a major achievement because of its timeless gestalt, its power to evoke deep feeling, and its unique use of figural form as the embodiment of a visionary humanist philosophy.
