Abakanowicz was new to me. As we talked about her sculpture several times this summer, it was truly wonderful that we stumbled upon a poster advertising her exhibition during our layover in Frankfurt. The exhibition turned out to be located just across the Main from the hotel where we stayed for the night. Both of us felt blessed because of this unexpected offering. It was like meeting an old friend far away from home.

Judging from her work and the black-and-white photograph in her catalogue, a poised woman. A woman at peace with the world. A woman with whom one could watch a sunrise in silence the second day of friendship. For some reason, Abakanowicz’s nature seemed to matter. Her weathered face and the twinkle in her eyes were reflected in the texture and spirit of her sculpture. She was there, everywhere.

Although I enjoyed many of her pieces exhibited at the Städtische Galerie in Städelschen Kunstinstitut, her sarcophagi simply entranced me. Bulky, coarse, scorched, they all exhibited two shallow humps and several blind protrusions. Round, heavy, awkward, they were constructed with roughly hewn pieces of wood and smeared with tar. There was something boat-like in the way they were put together, but there was also a suggestion that they were made out of concrete cast in place. They appeared abandoned, windblown, eroded by time. Yet, they were vibrant, animated, live. Despite the fact that they were exhibited in cramped glass cages lined up like soldiers in the Kunstinstitut garden, the four sarcophagi exuded a mesmerizing power.

We shared this sensation, albeit not necessarily for the same reasons. The sarcophagi struck me as unprecedented and extraordinary to the point of being extraterrestrial. I saw them as scale models of much larger structures resting in ruins millions of light years away. I saw them as tangible proofs that such structures had been waiting and waiting for us out there. I saw them as an eyewitness, as Abakanowicz’s accomplice in space exploration. And I saw them several centuries ahead of time. For all that I will remain forever grateful.

To Lauren Weingarten