Botch-job restoration work in Poland.
Credit score: Konserwator Zabytków, Fb.
Borja, Spain’s Ecce Homo, a famously botched restoration of a portray of Christ by an octogenarian, has held the crown of Catholic artwork face-palms for over a decade. Now, it faces stiff competitors from Poland, the place an nameless novice has repainted a 200-year-old village shrine close to the Czech border with jaw-dropping outcomes.
In Studzionka, 20 miles southwest of Katowice, the unknown artist remodeled solemn figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary into weird, barely recognisable types. Mary now wears a fleshy orange tone, crimson lipstick, and tiny pupils floating in watery eyes like pepper specks on fried eggs. Christ, crucified, has black caterpillar-like eyebrows and a mouth coated in a cherry crimson smear. The ‘art restorer’ even added a Polish translation of the German inscription ‘It’s accomplished’ and signed it ‘J Cz.’
Pictures of the work, posted on Fb, sparked each outrage and stomach laughs. Individuals likened the figures to Simpsons characters or backyard gnomes, prompting speedy motion from native heritage authorities. Poland’s public broadcaster TVP known as it ‘neo-vandalism,’ suggesting that it may get the artist as much as two years in jail. A retired conservator lamented the ‘good intentions’ that ruined what was doubtless a effective sculpture beneath thick, garish paint.
Heritage consultants are fuming, decrying the freewheeling strategy that has thrust this Polish shrine into the worldwide highlight as a brand new stage of restoration gone haywire.
