Public pressure matters. The Sędzisz mosaic, the last monumental decoration of its kind in the region, will most likely be preserved. This is the result of a petition by the Institute of Design in Kielce, which collected nearly two thousand signatures.
Photo: Institute of Design in Kielce
Completed in 1966, the composition by Jan Karczewski adorns the frieze of the Sędziszów community center. The building is undergoing major modernization for the first time in decades. Work on the building's facade was scheduled to begin in March, and the unique ceramic decoration was to disappear along with it. However, the memento of the city's railroad past will most likely be preserved. We wrote about the matter a week ago.
The work of a recognized artist
photo: investor materials
TheInstitute of Design in Kielce, which initiated a campaign to defend the mosaic, collected more than 1,700 signatures on an online petition to the city authorities. At the same time, employees of the Kielce institution tried to convince officials directly. Jan Przypkowski, director of the Przypkowski Museum in Jedrzejow and an art historian, also joined in the defense of Karczewski's work. He stressed that Jan Karczewski's works are in many valuable collections around the world (including the National Museum in Warsaw and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam), and the unique work on the building puts Sędziszów in good company.
Social media worked
photo: Institute of Design in Kielce
These arguments seem to have convinced the town ' s mayor, Waclaw Szarek, who maintains that he learned about the whole affair just from social media. He announces that the municipality will apply to the Provincial Conservator of Historic Preservation in Kielce for an opinion on the mosaic. On this basis, joint arrangements will be made for the next steps. Currently, the contractor is to stop work on the mosaic.
Poland's largest
photo: Grzegorz Karkoszka / szlakmodernizmu.pl
This is not the first mosaic in Poland that has been saved only thanks to social protest actions. One of the first successes of social activists, and at the same time the largest in terms of scale, was the preservation of the giant mosaic on the wall of the Biprostal skyscraper in Cracow. The cubist composition by Krakow-based artist Celina Styrylska-Taranczewska is the largest decoration of its kind in Poland. There were two attempts to cuff it - in 2009 and 2011, respectively.
Photo: Biprostal
The grassroots movement "Let's not let the Biprostalmosaic be ripped off" was supported by representatives of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, the management of the National Museum in Krakow, the architectural community of SARP and the Polish Union of Visual Artists. This great stir led to the entry of the mosaic in the city's records, and eventually in the register of monuments. The artwork underwent restoration, and the investor even published a book about it.
The relocation in its entirety
photo PKP S.A.
The problem of the monumental mosaic was handled differently in Oświęcim, where the reconstruction (or rather, demolition and construction of a new one) of the PKP railway station was carried out in recent years. The interior of the building's hall was decorated with a large work of art made in 1964-65. Its author is Kazimierz Gąsiorowski, a painter and mosaic artist. Measuring 24 × 4.5 meters, the mosaic was moved in three parts together with the ground. It found its new place outside the facility.
