Body 81F
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Polish, 1930–2017
1981
A large charcoal on paper portraying a vertical, hollowed torso in which Abakanowicz confronts bodily vulnerability and the anonymity of human presence.
Your eye is grabbed by a dense, dark vertical core of layered strokes and ghostly white highlights that read like ribs and internal organs, producing a tactile, tense sense of a body both present and eroding.
This drawing brings the artist’s sculptural concerns—texture, absence, and the collective human figure—into two dimensions, helping to shape late‑20th‑century explorations that blurred drawing, textile, and the politics of the body.
Medium
Charcoal on paper
Dimensions
39 3/8 x 29 5/8" (100 x 75.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Edward R. Broida and Richard E. Salomon
Accession
191.1993
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions