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Popes Curator: Józef Chrobak
Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow MOCAK
Lipowa 4, 30-702 Krakow, Poland |
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27 June – 14 September 2014
 Rafał Bujnowski, The Pope, 2002, oil / canvas, The MOCAK Collection |
 Volker Hildebrandt, Popes, 2008, photograph, The MOCAK Collection |
The exhibition Popes presented in the Beta Gallery will analyse the phenomenon of the fascination with John Paul II, his image and the material traces of his presence. The Pope’s images are ubiquitous in the TV and online and appear on everyday objects and in paintings – they have become part of the commercial apparatus. The key concept behind the exhibition is best illustrated by the photograph recording the encounter of the pop-culture artist Andy Warhol with the leader of the Catholic Church John Paul II in 1980. Warhol had not arrived in the Vatican in search of a spiritual experience – for him, the Pope was no more than an icon of popular culture. Contemporary artists examine the phenomenon of raising ordinary objects to the status of relics as well as the trend, prevalent throughout Poland, to have a papal monument. There will be a range of works on display, including paintings by the Wadowice-born Rafal Bujnowski, the author of a template, styled as a ‘Do It Yourself’, for making a portrait of John Paul II, and Monuments, a photographic series by Peter Fuss, devoted to the mass-produced papal monuments. |
