Magdalena Abakanowicz (Polish, 1930-2017)
The Group of Ten, 2011
Bronze
63.5 x 74 x 96 in.
Gift of the Artist; Pat and B.D. Rodgers; Linda and George Kelly, parents of Win Kelly, Class of 2002, and Madeline Kelly, Class of 2008; Katherine Belk-Cook; and Virginia Newell, Class of 1978
There’s an uncanniness to Abakanowicz’s bronze figures, arranged in a battalion-like configuration between Chambers and Union. The uneven spacing and varying heights of the figures communicate the individual and collective experience of being in a crowd, and their scarred surface textures allude to the texture of tree bark. Abakanowicz’s The Group of Ten was installed on the Davidson College campus in 2011, making The Group of Ten Abakanowicz’s first cited work in the Southeast. Abakanowicz’s figures feel ever-present and intricately linked to the unchanging centuries-old trees on Davidson’s campus.
Born in 1930 to an aristocratic Polish family, Abakanowicz lived through the Soviet occupation during World War II, and her work often explores the individual and collective experience of wartime trauma. She emerged as a fiber artist in the 1950s, during which she worked with organic materials such as burlap and resin before she began making her quintessential bronze-cast figurative sculptures from the 1950s through the 1970s. Like her contemporaries, Alina Szapocznikow, Magdalena Wiçcek, and other post-war “expressionistic” sculptors, Abakanowicz expressed the emotional fragmentation of the human form.
The small plaque accompanying Abakanowicz’s The Group of Ten states the title of the work, the date, and donors. Still, it does not include a dedication to a specific group of people or event the sculpture is intended to commemorate. Though not a memorial, The Group of Ten shapes our perception of the campus space. Echoing the verticality of the centuries-old trees on campus, Abakanowicz’s bronze figures remind students of our intricate relationship with the natural world and our responsibility to preserve the natural setting of Davidson’s campus. Each figure in The Group of Ten is affixed to the same brick platform, highlighting their individuality within the context of the group. Though not technically a memorial, The Group of Ten reminds students of the importance of maintaining individual identity within the crowd that is the larger campus community.
– Saskia Sheinkman ’25
To learn more about Magdalena Abakanowicz, visit the Sculpture Guides from Davidson College’s library!