The History of Alina Szapocznikow's Oeuvre Catalogue
A black-and-white graphic depicts a dark, grainy landscape with bright forms resembling stones or sculptures scattered across the foreground. In the upper left corner, the white text “alina szapocznikow” appears on dark rectangular backgrounds, with the dates “1926–1973” beneath the name.
The new presentation on the mezzanine of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź presents a mock-up of a catalogue of Alina Szapocznikow’s sculptures, designed by Roman Cieślewicz. The never-published catalogue was intended to accompany the artist’s monographic exhibition, which the Museum organised in 1975. The prototype is both a record of the history of research into Szapocznikow’s oeuvre and a testament to decades of institutional changes and relationships.
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Catalogue for Alina
Roman Cieślewicz’s catalogue mock-up of Alina Szapocznikow’s sculptures, made to a 1:1 scale, has visual value in its own right. Prepared using analogue techniques, it offers the satisfaction of observing a unique object that bears witness to design practices of the pre-digital era. The author’s handwritten notes, made in red marker on tracing paper, contain typical technical instructions for the printer used in publication production in the 1970s, such reprodukować na kreskę, kliszować bezpośrednio z makiety, retusz u dołu zdjęcia, cienki filet dookoła.
The catalogue’s dominant color, indicated on the inside covers, is a shade of cobalt blue. Arrows indicate the distances between the elements. The texts in two language versions – Polish and French – are accompanied by instructions regarding typeface and font size, line spacing, and column layout. The chosen typeface is Helvetica, a simple sans-serif font. The double-page spreads feature a precisely drawn grid of typographic guidelines. Cieślewicz filled in the blank spaces with the titles of the sculptures and numbers ranging from 1 to 419. The publication comprises 17 sixteen-page signatures and one blank sheet of card reserved as a spare.
On 30 May 1975, Cieślewicz sent the mock-up by airmail from Paris to Łódź. It weighed 13 kilograms and contained 500 photographs. The value of the parcel declared on the customs form was 5,000 French francs. The package was intended for the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, which was organizing an exhibition of sculptures by Alina Szapocznikow, who had died in 1973.
The First Posthumous Exhibition and the Last Photograph in the Catalogue
The retrospective exhibition of Alina Szapocznikow’s sculptures, which took place at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź from September to October 1975, was not the first posthumous exhibition devoted to the artist’s work. A few weeks after her death in 1973, the ARC – Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris – presented selected works from the Tumours series and the entire Herbarium series, comprising 14 polyester imprints of body parts. Cieślewicz included a negative from the exhibition documentation on the final page of the catalogue, which was intended to encompass the artist’s entire sculptural oeuvre. The photograph depicts Piotr Stanisławski, a life-size cast of the artist’s son’s body, made of clay, plaster, and polyester. The sculpture, titled Piotr – Full Nude, is positioned on a low, white plinth in the center of a high-ceilinged room.
Joint Exhibition and Catalogue
Work on the exhibition and catalogue began simultaneously. They began in the spring of 1973 by gathering information about the artist’s sculptures and drawings held in institutional, museum, and private collections. Numerous requests were sent for paid photographic prints of sculptures from existing photographic documentation. Radio programs and recordings from the Polish Film Chronicle devoted to Szapocznikow were also sought for inclusion in the bibliography. The correspondence was handled in detail by the Museum’s then director, Ryszard Stanisławski, who was to serve as the exhibition curator.
According to the original schedule, the opening of the exhibition was planned for March 1975. In May, the exhibition was planned to have a second presentation at the National Museum in Wrocław. From the outset, the National Museum in Wrocław made its participation conditional on the exhibition being held during the AICA Congress, scheduled to take place in Wrocław in May 1975, which was a matter of considerable prestige for the institution. Unfortunately, technical constraints made it necessary to postpone the opening until September. As a result, the National Museum in Wrocław withdrew from further work on organizing the joint exhibition and catalogue, limiting its involvement to lending works from its collection. This decision may have contributed to the failure of Cieślewicz’s publication project, which was initially intended to be financed by the National Museum in Wrocław.
Content and editorial collaboration: Maciej Cholewiński, Marta Skłodowska, Marcin Stasiewicz.
