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Visitors to the National Museum walk past a new statue of the late pope, St. John Paul II, throwing a stone at a “Poisoned Well” just hours before its official inauguration in the museum yard in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. The sculpture by Poland’s Jerzy Kalina is said to be a response to a controversial 1999 sculpture by Italian Maurizio Cattelan in which the Polish-born pontiff was shown as being crushed by a similar stone.
Visitors to the National Museum walk past a new statue of the late pope, St. John Paul II, throwing a stone at a “Poisoned Well” just hours before its official inauguration in the museum yard in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. The sculpture by Poland’s Jerzy Kalina is said to be a response to a controversial 1999 sculpture by Italian Maurizio Cattelan in which the Polish-born pontiff was shown as being crushed by a similar stone.
A visitor to the National Museum walks past a new statue of the late pope, St. John Paul II, throwing a stone at a “Poisoned Well” just hours before its official inauguration in the museum yard in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. The sculpture by Poland’s Jerzy Kalina is said to be a response to a controversial 1999 sculpture by Italian Maurizio Cattelan in which the Polish-born pontiff was shown as being crushed by a similar stone.
Visitors to the National Museum walk past a new statue of the late pope, St. John Paul II, throwing a stone at a “Poisoned Well” just hours before its official inauguration in the museum yard in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. The sculpture by Poland’s Jerzy Kalina is said to be a response to a controversial 1999 sculpture by Italian Maurizio Cattelan in which the Polish-born pontiff was shown as being crushed by a similar stone.
Visitors to the National Museum walk past a new statue of the late pope, St. John Paul II, throwing a stone at a “Poisoned Well” just hours before its official inauguration in the museum yard in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. The sculpture by Poland’s Jerzy Kalina is said to be a response to a controversial 1999 sculpture by Italian Maurizio Cattelan in which the Polish-born pontiff was shown as being crushed by a similar stone.
Visitors to the National Museum stop before a new statue of the late pope, St. John Paul II, throwing a stone at a “Poisoned Well” just hours before its official inauguration in the museum yard in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. The sculpture by Poland’s Jerzy Kalina is said to be a response to a controversial 1999 sculpture by Italian Maurizio Cattelan in which the Polish-born pontiff was shown as being crushed by a similar stone.
Visitors to the National Museum stop before a new statue of the late pope, St. John Paul II, throwing a stone at a “Poisoned Well”, just hours before its official inauguration in the museum yard in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. The sculpture by Poland’s Jerzy Kalina is said to be a response to a controversial 1999 sculpture by Italian Maurizio Cattelan in which the Polish-born pontiff was shown as being crushed by a similar stone.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A new statue that depicts the late pope St. John Paul II throwing a boulder into red water has provoked debate in his native Poland and revived memories of a 1999 Italian sculpture that showed him crushed under a meteorite, to which the new work was intended as a counter-statement.
The statue by Polish artist Jerzy Kalina, titled “Poisoned Well,” was inaugurated Thursday in front of Warsaw’s National Museum to mark 100 years since the much-loved pope’s birth on May 18, 1920.
Kalina, 76, said the installation in the museum’s fountain relates to John Paul II’s efforts in the 1980s to help free Poland from communism, which is symbolized by the red color the water has from a red fabric placed on the fountain’s bottom.
The artist, the creator of many works dealing with the Catholic faith and church, said he also wanted to send a “warning against multiplying forms of red revolution” and encourage the return to the “clear well.” He was apparently referring to the weakening of faith and religion in Poland.
But some critics associated the art work with blood and violence. The sculpture also drew ridicule on social media, with some commenters comparing the life-sized likeness of the canonized pope toting a rock to a cartoon figure.
The museum said the installation was Kalin’s response to “La Nona Ora,” Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture that showed the pope as “feeble old man” pinned to the ground by a huge meteorite.
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