'Pissing Lenin' fountain graces Nowa Huta
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
11.06.2014 10:43
A bright yellow statue of Vladimir Lenin answering a call of nature has been installed in Nowa Huta, the 'ideal socialist town' built on the edge of Krakow in the Stalinist era.
Photo: KBF/Michal Ramus
The fountain was created for Krakow's 6th Grolsch ArtBoom Festival, which this year focuses entirely on the former industrial centre.
Fountain of the Future, as the work has been dubbed by artists Bartosz Szydlowski and Malgorzata Szydlowska, references a statue of Lenin that once took pride of place in the district.
The diminutive yellow version is a replica of a communist-era work which anti-regime activists tried to blow up on several occasions during the 1970s and 1980s.
Nowa Huta, which had been built as a counter-balance to what the authorities deemed as 'bourgeois Krakow,' was based around a colossal steelworks dedicated to Lenin.
It was initially founded as a separate town but was absorbed into Krakow in 1951.
However, the workers proved less loyal to the communist regime than the authorities might have hoped, and the district became a bastion of dissent.
Last Sunday, President Bronislaw Komorowski visited Nowa Huta as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations marking the 4 June 1989 free elections that paved the way for the end of communism.
The 6th ArtBoom Festival runs until 22 June, and there are no plans at present to make Fountain of the Future a permanent installation. (nh)