An exhibition of works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, “Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at London’s Tate Modern gallery from Thursday 17 November. “Fascinating and mesmerising,” says a preview of the exhibition in the British newspaper The Times.

‘Magdalena Abakanowicz, a pioneer of artistic textiles, invites you to wander through a world where fabric is combined with something what appear to be fairy tale forms,’ writes the newspaper’s reviewer, Rachel Campbell-Johnston.

The journalist points out that although most British viewers have probably never heard of Abakanowicz before, her exhibition is fascinating and mesmerising, and definitely worth a visit.

“You glide through the spaces between knotty sisal trees. You step on an outstretched liana; you peek into the shadowy crevices of the rough fabric. You stand amidst dark forms and black shadows. One stunned critic called them abakans and that name has stuck. Their raw fibres weave a mysterious, magical realm’, writes Campbell-Johnston.

Introducing Abakanowicz, the reviewer explains that the artist’s career spanned more than six decades, but that the Tate curators focused on the period from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s, in which a radical talent managed to transform woven textiles, hitherto widely regarded as delicate and feminine, into sculptural monuments.

“Slipping through the barriers of the state-imposed socialist realism that communism demanded, she discovered a fresh creative freedom in textiles. Abakanowicz believed that sculpture does not necessarily have to be associated with hard things that are placed on a pedestal. It can hang from the ceiling, it can bulge, swell and coagulate, it can tangle and flutter.

The exhibition of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s work Every Tangle of Thread and Rope will be on display at the Tate Modern until 21 May 2023.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński