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Alina Szapocznikow Noga (Leg), 1962 Plaster, 7⅞ × 19⅝ × 25 in. Courtesy the Estate of Alina Szapocznikow, Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris, and Hauser & Wirth
Cast in plaster directly from her own right leg, Noga is a breakthrough work for Szaponicow, marking a stark departure from her classical training. While its fragmented form suggests an eroticization of the body, it also serves as a chilling reminder of trauma, recalling the internment in Nazi concentration camps that the artist survived as a teenager. Juxtaposed here with the thumb-shaped pestle from Pompeii, it evokes the plaster casts of human bodies buried under volcanic ash. —HJ
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