Laura Gascoigne

Biomorphic forms that tempt the viewer to cop a feel: Maria Bartuszova, at Tate Modern, reviewed

Plus: Olga de Amaral's woven sculptures gleam and glimmer like glass tesserae in Byzantine mosaics

Maria Bartuszova in her studio, Kosice, 1987. Credit: Archive of Maria Bartuszova 
issue 01 October 2022

Art is a fundamentally childish activity: painters dream up images and sculptors play with stuff. It was while playing with an inflatable ball with her young daughter in the early 1960s that Maria Bartuszova had the idea of filling balloons with liquid plaster instead of air. The inspiration fed her muse for 30 years, seeding the mixed crop of biomorphic forms currently filling five rooms at Tate Modern.

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