The Main Courtyard of the National Museum in Warsaw will once again turn into an exhibition space for the presentation of a work by a contemporary artist. Appearing in the courtyard this time will be Jerzy Kalina’s installation Poisoned Well commemorating Pope John Paul II on the centenary of his birth.

 

As the artist himself stresses, the figure of the Pope hurling a boulder into red water is not a monument but an ephemeral piece of site-specific art, in which the integral component will be the courtyard’s stone fountain. As a result, the work must be analysed only in the context of the environment it occupies and the architecture of the museum building. The building’s wings form a visual frame and lend historical-symbolic context for the installation to enter into a dialogue with. The title as well as the depiction of the saint holding a massive rock and the red water in the fountain’s basin all allude to Polish myths and symbols as they pose questions on the role of art, tradition and memory.

 

Neither standing atop a plinth nor enclosed in a case, the naturally-scale statue depicts Pope John Paul II in a realistic and unstylised manner. Situated along the route taken by museum visitors as they enter the building, it engages them: people entering the museum’s front gate see its back side and are provoked to stop, turn and examine the piece more closely.

 

This installation in the NMW courtyard is the artist’s response to Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture "La Nona Ora" from 1999. Far from Cattelan’s portrayal of the pope as a feeble old man crushed by a meteorite, Kalina’s installation sees him as a titan of superhuman strength. The vision proposed here invites various interpretations. The artist himself remembers the pope as a man who played a decisive role in recent Polish and European history as he set off a series of historical, social and spiritual changes. The work ponders issues such as time, persistence and passing via the symbolism inherent to the rock and the ephemeral nature of the limited-time installation.

 

"Poisoned Well" is Jerzy Kalina’s first work dealing with John Paul II. Juxtaposed with the national Museum in Warsaw’s architecture and collection, it constructs a layered and complex statement on art and historical hindsight as well as on timeless and universal human values.