BRONZE CROWD 

The Bronze Crowd is a bronze sculpture made by Magdalena Abakanowicz in 1990 and is overall 4400 pounds. It is apart of the Raymond and Patsy collection at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, TX. Magdalena Abakanowicz was born in Poland in 1930 and is known to be “one of the most influential sculptors of the Post War period.” All of her artwork is influenced by her real life experiences when she was nine years old and the war broke out. She and her family lived through the revolution imposed by Russia and the forty-five years of Soviet domination. “Her powerful portrayal of the figure explores the human condition, the relationship between man and nature, and social and political histories pertaining to her experience in Soviet-occupied Poland.” During the earlier times, she did not have access to all the materials as we do today so she would work on soft textile sculptures called Abakans. Ever since she was able to travel aboard from Poland, she has been known for her intense human figures. The human figures are mostly headless “representing our capacity to follow a leader or movement blindly, without thought.” She has said, "A crowd is the most cruel because it begins to act like a brainless organism." Therefore most of her figures are “brainless” and from a distance all thirty-six figures look identical but when the viewer looks closer, each figure has it’s own individuality. She has created every figure with it’s own texture by hand to emphasize how many felt alone even when they were together in a group. Viewers can walk in between and beside each figure (71 1/8 x 23 x 15 1/2 in) at the Nasher Sculpture Center, which allows them to imagine the horror similar to the prisoners in the concentration camps.

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