Sculpture-lampe IX

At the end of a slender green stem, a bright red mouth emerges from a pair of poppy-coloured buttocks. This is a lamp.

The Polish artist Alina Szapocznikow makes her “sculpture-lamps” from coloured polyester resin, electrical wire and metal. In 1966, she began making a series of illuminated mouths and breasts using casts of her own body parts, or those of her friends including Ariane Raoul-Duval, the partner of the writer Roland Topor, or the British actor Julie Christie. By creating these “body-object-sculptures”, the artist achieves a twofold alienation. The first is the alienation of the woman’s body, objectified by the elements relating to sensuality and sexuality. The second is the alienation of the objet d’art: it is no longer a simple sculpture, but a lamp - blurring the boundary between aesthetic function and utilitarian function.

This sculpture by Alina Szapocznikow, part of the Pinault Collection, was presented in 2014 at the “Femminilità Radicale” (“Radical Femininity”) show at the Gucci Museo in Florence.