The Temple of Divine Providence Print - Limited Edition of 1

The Temple of Divine Providence, under construction in southern Warsaw's Wilanów district, will be one the most important Roman Catholic buildings in Poland. The story of its construction began over 200 years ago. Since then, due to historic circumstances, Poles had been unable to complete a votive church to Divine Providence. The image shown is of the proposed design from Poland’s Second Republic. The Committee in charge of this build chose a proposal by architect Bohdan Pniewski for a building of the constructivist style with a tower that would resemble the skyscrapers in New York. Unfortunately, the date to begin the construction was constantly postponed. Finally, it was settled in 1939, the year of the invasion of Poland by Germany followed by the Soviet Union. In November 2002 this building was started with a design similar to this original, it is still under construction. Within Svetlana Boym’s novel The Future of Nostalgia she outlines two different tendencies of nostalgia that one can experience: restorative and reflective nostalgia. She explains the dangers of restorative nostalgia which characterizes national and nationalist revivals all over the world, which engage in myth-making of history by means of a return to national symbols and myths. Restorative nostalgia manifests itself in the total reconstruction of monuments of the past. I find it interesting that a country which was unable to produce this building due to the Communist regime after WW2 would go back to this original Constructivist form, burdened with socialist ideology after ridding itself of Communism. The form of the building and the purpose are in direct conflict with each other, yet both the form and the use are still firmly rooted within the ideology of restorative nostalgia. I find both the look and the name of this building leave the viewer with particularly uneasy feelings.

Printmaking:Screenprinting on Canvas

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:1

Size:65 W x 69.7 H x 1.6 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.