Poland Is Becoming a Global Capital of Jewish Art, Despite Itself

FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE
By Ian Volmer

The multimedia artist Gabi von Seltmann's "Reconstruction" projects an image of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw, destroyed by the city's Nazi occupiers in 1943, onto the facade of the office tower that currently occupies the site. Scheduled to appear next in April, the work also features the single Hebrew word ליבע: “love.” MARTA KUŚMIERZ

In Poland, on the former site of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw—the largest house of worship for what was, until World War II, the largest Jewish population in the world—there now rises a tall azure skyscraper. Known simply as Blekitny Wiezowiec (“Blue Skyscraper”), the building with its all-glass facade has lately served as a kind of screen for a unique public art project. Twice in the last two years, most recently in April 2019, the artist Gabi von Seltmann has projected an image of the synagogue, long ago destroyed by the Nazis, onto the contemporary skyscraper: a grayish translucent ghost, hovering all night over the Warsaw streetscape. [More]