In 1962, Maria Bartuszová filled a condom with plaster, left it to turn solid, put it on a base and eventually cast it in aluminium. The untitled work was, she said in notes accompanying drawings, intended to represent a tree swaying in the wind. That this, the earliest work in Tate Modern’s exhibition, achieves just that tells you everything about the quiet magic of this remarkable, too-little-known sculptor.
Born in 1936 in Prague, Bartuszová spent most of her life in Košice, now in Slovakia. Tate Modern’s show – as beautifully presented as anything I’ve seen here – reflects Bartuszová’s work across 30 years. And hers was a remarkably consistent practice.
