Poster showing the unsuccessful renovation of the fresco of Jesus at the sanctuary in Borja near Zaragoza. The renovation was done in 2012 by Cecilia Gimenez, an 80-year-old amateur painter from the village. As a result, the head of Jesus looked like a hedgehog and the title of the fresco "Ecce Homo" was changed mockingly to "Ecce Mono". Paradoxically, the botched piece of work attracted crowds of tourists who wanted to evaluate it. An opera on the subject was even staged in the Vatican. Photo Toni Galán /
When, after a decade-long restoration (1980-1990), the "Last Judgment" was shown to the public in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, people started protesting. The restorers were accused of using trashy, garish colors and were called simpletons who destroyed Michelangelo's masterpiece! Yet in truth this is how the painting originally looked. The exalted "noble patina of gray" was simply centuries-old dirt that had been removed. Photo Tomasz Sternicki / Forum
The "Laocoön Group" sculpture unearthed in fragments in Rome in 1506 was pieced back together but Laocoön's arm and his sons’ hands were missing. Sculptor Giovanni Angelo di Montorsoli reconstructed them, reflecting his own taste and preferences of the era. In 1906, the original arm was found and restored but viewers did not like it. They preferred the previous version. Photo on the left shows the sculpture at the end of the 19th century; on the right, the current version. Photo Ashmolean Museum / Heritage
Nowadays, we see works made of butter, meat, fruit, plants, jelly beans, blood, human tissue and excrement. Restorers pale when confronted with such challenges and materials. It helps if the author is alive and available for consultation about how best to preserve a specific work. The photo shows the work by Marek Kijewski, exhibited in 2013 in Poznań, at the exhibition entitled "Performer" by Oskar Dawicki. Photo Marek Lapis / Forum
Marek Kijewski was known for his startling sculptures made of non-classical raw materials. He related to the mass culture of the early 1990s (bright colors, neons signs and sweets) with a degree of skepticism and a grain of salt. He even created some of his works using meringue. Since meringue is brittle and can crumble and break, rather than renovating some of his old works, the restorer opted to replace them with new ones. The photo shows the works by Kijewski, "Ancient Languages" (1995) and "Neon Martyrd
Painted in 1914, the famous "Black Square on a White Background" by Kazimierz Malewicz was considered a breakthrough work of art. But its original version is missing. In 1929, the painter made a replica of his first abstract. However, this time around he used an already painted canvas as the base for the replica with disastrous results. Malevich’s black square is no longer black. The old painting’s layers emerge from beneath the latter. The photo shows the famous painting at the artist's show at the Staatli
When Magdalena Abakanowicz was still alive, her famous "Back" series of 80 figures made of resin-hardened sackcloth began to lose their shape, and to sag and bend over. The installation was made in the 1970s, a time when the artist was just beginning to experiment with plastics. Subsequently acquiring a better knowledge of epoxy resins, she chose not to renovate the original figures but to replace them with new ones. The photo shows the 2021 Abakanowicz exhibition entitled "We are fibrous structures" at the
Another outstanding Polish sculptor Alina Szapocznikow also experimented with synthetic resins. From the onset of the 1960s, she made her own body’s moldings from polyester and polyurethane. After her death in 1973, her works began to lose their original appearance, becoming gray, deformed and dull. The photo shows her 1971 works "Crazy fiancée" and "Crazy fiancée married", which were shown at her retrospective in 1998 at the National Museum in Krakow. Photo PAP / Jerzy Ruciński Nagórny
After consulting with Szapocznikow’s heir [Piotr Stanisławski, the artist's adoptive son, model and assistant], Prof. Iwona Szmelter undertook the task of saving the artist's pioneering achievements. The photo shows the work "Piotr", a male nude and at the same time a body cast from 1972, exhibited at Szapocznikow’s Retrospective at the National Museum in Krakow in 1998. The exhibition included the artist’s works on loan from Paris, owned by her son. Photo PAP / Jerzy Ruciński Nagórny
Restorations can shock, they can be difficult and unsuccessful