You might remember this sculpture from a post earlier this month, but that glimpse did little to convey the impact of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s astounding piece of public art situated just southwest of Chicago's Grant Park. I can’t close the book on Abakanowicz’s Agore (Greek for meeting place) without sharing the rest of the story.
I felt small standing amid the 9-foot tall bronze figures. One-hundred six headless figures conspired to blot out the city of Chicago to the north and all notion of my personal space in the huge crowd of wrinkled giants.
The anonymity of that tide of humanity, indistinguishable with the exception of direction, served to highlight the sense that I was moving without volition or vantage, little more than a cog in a wheel. Tension highlighted my experience inside this massive sculpture. A flash of anxiety punctuated a childhood memory that surfaced without preamble.
My anxiety grew as the crowd of holiday shoppers pressed in around me and my mother. The
light changed, providing momentum to the crowd; we moved in mass to cross the street. I lost hold of my mother’s hand midway as we met an equal mass of pedestrians forging a path in the opposite direction. Panicked, I’d stood rooted to the spot as the crowd dwindled and my mother reappeared to sweep me up into her arms.
The anonymity of that tide of humanity, indistinguishable with the exception of direction, served to highlight the sense that I was moving without volition or vantage, little more than a cog in a wheel. Tension highlighted my experience inside this massive sculpture. A flash of anxiety punctuated a childhood memory that surfaced without preamble.
My anxiety grew as the crowd of holiday shoppers pressed in around me and my mother. The
light changed, providing momentum to the crowd; we moved in mass to cross the street. I lost hold of my mother’s hand midway as we met an equal mass of pedestrians forging a path in the opposite direction. Panicked, I’d stood rooted to the spot as the crowd dwindled and my mother reappeared to sweep me up into her arms.
Crowds often have an energy all their own, a unique force of human nature, one moment benign, the next beastly. Rooted to my spot inside Magdalena’s small army of petrified people, I could still sense the energy rooted in my memories. I felt dwarfed by that force, by the immutable tree trunks shaped like limbs.
Artist Magdalena Abakanowicz admits to drawing on her recollections of that force of human nature when sculpting; she grew up in Soviet dominated Poland following World War II, ". . . in times which were extraordinary by their various forms of collective hate and collective adulation.”
I found her creative voice extraordinary, too; and provocative.
I found her creative voice extraordinary, too; and provocative.
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