Seminar on Magdalena Abakanowicz

Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHIO) invite to an open seminar in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. 

Seminar program  
10–10:30am Arrival and preview of the exhibition  / 10:30–10:40am Welcome by Caroline Ugelstad and Merete Røstad / 10:40–11:30am Joanna Inglot: On Magdalena Abakanowicz / 11:30am–12:15pm Ann Coxon and Mary Jane Jacob: On organizing Every Tangle of Thread and Rope / 12:15–1pm Caroline Ugelstad and Camilla Larsson: On Magdalena Abakanowicz’s presence in Norway and Sweden / 1–1:30pm Q&A.

This seminar is part of Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHIO) seminar series Agenda. Agenda is a series of open seminars organised by the Art and Craft department at KHIO. The ambition is to start discussions about themes related to art and public space and art and craft. 

Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope is an exhibition organized by Tate Modern in collaboration with Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and the Fondation Toms Pauli at Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne/Plateforme 10. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore an extraordinary body of work by the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, known as Abakans. 

Participants
Joanna Inglot is Edith M. Kelso Associate Professor of Art History at Macalester, St. Paul, MN USA. She specializes in contemporary art, focusing on feminist art and art in former Eastern Europe. Her book The Figurative Sculpture of Magdalena Abakanowicz: Bodies, Environments, and Myths (University of California Press, 2004) examines Abakanowicz’s work in the context of a dynamic cultural and sociopolitical scene under Communism in Poland and in an international context. She is working with Mary Jane Jacob on editing a new book on Abakanowicz featuring new interpretations of Abakanowicz’s textile and fibre work from the outset of her career until the mid-1970s.  

Dr. Camilla Larsson is a post-doc researcher at Södertörn University, studying Polish art in Sweden from the 1960s until today (2023-2025). Art historian specialising in contemporary art, critical historiography, and transnational exchange. Areas of expertise: performance art, theories of performativity, and the history and theories of curating. Defended her PhD, Appearances. Performative Interpretations of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor, in May 2021. Independent curator and writer. 

Mary Jane Jacob is a curator and writer who champions public, site-specific, and socially engaged art as a shared practice and discourse. Her most recent book, Dewey for Artists (University of Chicago Press), combines the experiences of artists and curators with that of the public in making meaning in the everyday. Jacob is co-curator of the Tate Modern touring exhibition of Magdalena Abakanowicz and Artistic Director of the artist’s charitable foundation. She is also a Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Chair of the Sculpture Department. 

Caroline Ugelstad is Director of Exhibitions and Collections and Chief Curator at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo. She is an active contributor to the current discourse on the future of art institutions and the new forms of digital dissemination, such as in recent research funded by Arts Council Norway. Ugelstad is researching Polish influence on Norwegian textile art in the 1960s and the 1970s for the research project The Feminist Legacy in Art Museums (FLAME) and curating the Magdalena Abakanowicz touring exhibition at Henie Onstad. Ugelstad holds a major in philosophy and a PhD in art history from the University of Oslo, and an MA from Courtauld Institute in London.  

Ann Coxon is Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, London. She has a long-standing interest in textile-based practice. Coxon is the curator of the touring exhibition Magdalena Abakanowicz, Tate Modern, 2022–23. She has curated numerous exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern. Coxon is the author of Motherhood (Tate Publishing, 2023) and Louise Bourgeois (Tate Publishing, 2010). She is researching for a PhD thesis focusing on European textile art from 1960–79.

Merete Røstad, PhD, is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and artist-researcher whose practice examines collective memory, representation, and archives. Currently, Røstad holds the position of Head of Program and Associate Professor in the Master program Art and Public Space (MFA) and serves as the Head of Research at the Arts and Craft Department at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO).