Sculpture – Post #8
Body Casting and Body Sculptures
Own your Sexuality as a Woman
Alina Szapocnikow (1926-1973) was both a sculptor and graphic artist who experimented with new materials, especially polyester and polyurethane which she used to make casts of her body. “All I am able to produce is ungainly objects…I try to preserve the fleeting moments of life…I am convinced that in spite of all the symptoms of impermanence, the human body is the most sensitive and in fact the only source of all kinds of joy, pain, and truth,” Alina was quoted saying in a research article by Amy Chmielewski. Szapocnikow was obsessed with the human form, which may in fact be one of the reasons her work is compared to major feminist artists Louise Bourgeois and Hannah Wilke. But being obsessed with the human form, as an artist, may have just been the thing that brought out the best in Szapocnikow’s work—it gave her a greater connection with the gender and sexuality roles she was working with during her short 46 years of life (Szapocnikow passed away from cancer in 1973).
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| Mary Magdalene |
One of her earlier works involving the abstract form of women revolves around Mary Magdalene. With distorted features and limbs, Mary Magdalene was a sculpture by Szapocnikow that many individuals are still unsure about. Mary herself was a biblical figure who held the title of “abject sexuality” (Chmielewski 40) or prostitute—until 1969 when the Second Vatican Council removed the label—because of the belief that her and the “unnamed sinner” (King’s College) were the same person. The distortion in Szapocnikow’s sculpture may have to do with the similar “distortion” of Mary Magdalene’s name. During those biblical times, Mary would have been expected to be an asexual individual, per say, because women were not seen as having a sexuality at all. Although not a perfect analogy (it does not take into account the fact that asexual individuals may still be attracted to people, though not in a sexual way), it gets the point across that any sort of semi-sexual activity by Mary would have most likely ended in her being labeled a whore/prostitute. Through Szapocnikow’s plaster and iron-fillings sculpture, it is able to be deduced that gender roles played a part in her decision to make Mary Magdalene an abstract or distorted work.
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| Striding Lips |
Another way to look at Szapocnikow’s work is through her use of fragmentation. “While representations of deformed or fragmented bodies, especially female ones, can pose interpretive difficulties for contemporary viewers, Szapocnikow may have seen fragmentation as a liberating gesture, freeing the body from its ideological baggage and the constraints of an externally imposed identity” (Chmielewski 42). Striding Lips, a sculpture of bronze that Szapocnikow created in 1966, may have disturbed some viewers, but it also ties into gender and sexuality themes. For one, just searching information about “lips as sexual” brings up websites with taglines such as “Shape of a woman’s pout may mean better sex” and “Lip colour affects perceived sex typicality and attractiveness of women.” Through the mass marketing of lipstick, women have been made to believe that lips, especially ones colored red, are seductive and tied to their sexuality. Striding Lips makes bounds toward trying to reclaim lips for women in general by making them “bronze…and creepy” (Chmielewski 42).
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| Szapocnikow's Lip Lamps |
After making the bronze lips, Szapocnikow even went on to make another set which she fitted with electronic wiring so they could double as lamps. Chmielewski states this was to “explicitly tease the viewer in their capacity to be ‘turned on,’ a double-entendre also expressed by the French verb allumer” and also seemed to “celebrate the miniskirt-sporting, sexually liberated woman of the 1960s” (Chmielewski 42). Much like the reclamation of words such as “butch” or “lipstick-lesbian” for the LGBT community, Szapocnikow allows women to reclaim their bodies and the sexual aspects of them from the stereotypical idea of woman-as-man’s-play-thing. Even actress Julie Christie commissioned Szapocnikow to cast her one of these lamps. Only instead of her lips, Christie had Szapocnikow sculpt “somewhat racier breast lamps, with nipples aflame” (Chmielweski 42).
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| Silicone Breast Implants |
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| Push-Up Bras |
Like Szapocnikow’s lip lamps, Christie wanted to reclaim her sexuality as a woman. Although lips are one of the most sexual aspects of a woman, she understood that breasts are one of the most sexualized parts of a woman’s body. With things like breast implants and an inability to find cute bras without an “extra lift” of two cup-sizes, Christie understands that a woman’s chest just isn’t her own anymore. So, by commissioning Szapocnikow to create a cast of her own breasts as a sculpture, Christie is able to own her breasts and the realness that a mold is able to capture. “Rather than alienate female eros, Szapocnikow domesticates it, bringing just a touch of the red-light district into the home” (Chmielewski 42).
Like Chmielewski sums in her conclusion, Szapocnikow’s work has gone unnoticed and without proper credit for years since her death. “Her relation to feminism is particularly difficult to pin down” and “presents a definite challenge to contemporary viewers” (Chmielewski 46), but so much of her work allows women to break free from stereotypes and claim their bodies that today’s woman should feel liberated by her work. Although Szapocnikow does not have exact ties with the Feminism Movement doesn’t mean the movement didn’t have a huge impact on her work and the way she portrays women and their sexuality.
Works Cited
Chmielewski, Amy. "Alina Szapocznikow: And Her Sculpture of Plastic Impermanence." Woman's Art Journal 32.1 (2011): 39-47. Print.
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