Including fees, the buyer paid PLN 16.1 million (EUR 3.8 million), setting a new record for a work of contemporary Polish art, according to auction house Polswiss Art, which conducted the sale on Monday.
The installation, titled Bambini, comprises 83 child-sized humanoid figures without heads or arms, made from concrete, glue, wood and fibres.
Abakanowicz created the work in 1998-1999 for Les Jardins du Palais Royal in Paris. It was later exhibited in Poland as well as in Madrid, Düsseldorf, Milan and Timișoara.
Polswiss Art described Bambini as one of the most important artistic reflections on the human condition at the end of the 20th century.
Born in 1930, Abakanowicz is widely regarded as one of Poland's most influential contemporary artists.
She gained international recognition in the 1960s for her large-scale textile works, known as "abakans," which were suspended from gallery ceilings and challenged traditional distinctions between sculpture and textile art.
In the 1970s, she turned increasingly to sculpture, first working with jute and metal before creating large-scale figurative installations displayed around the world.
During her career, Abakanowicz held more than 100 solo exhibitions. Her works are housed in the collections of more than 120 museums and galleries, including the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
A 2019 exhibition of work by Magdalena Abakanowicz at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, south of Warsaw. Photos: Danuta Isler/Radio Poland
Abakanowicz died in 2017 at the age of 86.
Magdalena Abakanowicz. Photo: PAP/Grzegorz Momot
(mk/gs)