Johannes Hevelius

Technique: granite sculpture

Dimensions: –

Object: Mariusz Otta’s sculpture of Johannes Hevelius forms part of the “Great Citizens of Gdańsk” section of the Gdańsk Open-Air Sculpture Gallery. It was created in 2008 during the Kashubian Granite Sculpture Plein-Air, which took place in the Kashubian Ethnographic Park in Wdzydze Kiszewskie. The open-air workshop was attended by 11 artists representing a generation of masters and a generation of students. All of them were asked to depict famous inhabitants of Gdańsk in granite. A total of 11 sculptures were produced and subsequently placed in Gdańsk’s Ronald Reagan Park. At present, the gallery is composed of ten works, one of them incomplete; Bente Kluge’s statue of Lech Wałęsa has disappeared.

Mariusz Otta decided to sculpt the figure of Johannes Hevelius, a Gdańsk astronomer, mathematician and constructor of scientific instruments. The sculpture was placed on a low plinth. The artist created the head of Johannes Hevelius out of black granite, in his trademark way combining ugliness with beauty to achieve a surrealistic sculptural effect. The astronomer’s face corresponds to the image of Hevelius known from prints and paintings, but in Otta’s version it is distorted, bringing to mind the surrealistic way thinking about shape and form: the head is flattened with carefully sculpted facial features. As the artist himself emphasizes, when working, he tries to capture his own dispersed thoughts, constructing the portrayed person anew, as if creating their image from scratch. A similar effect was achieved with the sculpture in Reagan Park. As art historian Marta Wróblewska described the output of Mariusz Otta, instead of making a portrait, the artist rather creates a study of a face.

Place: The “Great Citizens of Gdańsk” Open-Air Sculpture Gallery is located in the park named after President Ronald Reagan, an honorary citizen of Gdańsk. The gallery may be found in the part of the park situated in the Przymorze Wielkie neighbourhood. The 85 ha park stretches along the coastal belt of Gdańsk, encompassing the districts of Przymorze Wielkie, the western part of Brzeźno and the eastern part of the Żabianka-Wejhera-Jelitkowo-Tysiąclecia quarter. This area used to be occupied by temporary allotment gardens and wasteland. The plan to develop the seaside area for recreational purposes was drawn up in 2001 and implemented in stages until 2014. In addition to areas where one can relax, engage in physical activity or make a bonfire, the park was diversified with outflow ponds with living shorelines and nesting islands for waterbirds. In 2008, the Ronald Reagan Park in Gdańsk received a distinction from the Society of Polish Town Planners (TUP), which recognized it as the best managed green space in Poland.

Information about the author: Mariusz Otta (b. 1983) is a sculptor who also works with ceramic art, painting and drawing. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, graduating from Prof. Sławoj Ostrowski’s studio. Otta has taken part in solo and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including France, Germany, Spain and Norway. The artist’s works may be found in the public spaces of Gdańsk, e.g. two wooden sculptures in the John Paul II Park and a lion’s head on Kobzdeja Square. His works also decorated the set design of Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War.

Condition of the object: no remarks

Owner/guardian: Gdańsk Community Foundation

Author of the entry: Dorota Kucharczyk