The fallen plague pillar refers to the covid pandemic

Plague columns were erected in Central Europe for two reasons: firstly, to thank the survivors and also to protect against the next wave of this deadly disease that swept through Europe from time to time in earlier times. Although the plague has been eradicated, new diseases have come and continue to affect mankind today. More than a hundred years ago, it was the Spanish flu and, more recently, covid. And it is to this that the monumental work Fuscum Subnigrum by the Slovak artist Marek Kvetan responds. A giant imitation of a Baroque plague column dominates the Moments section of the SEFO 2024 Triennial exhibition.
Kvetan based his work on a plague column erected in 1723 in Košice, Slovakia. This column is known for its rich figural decoration, it is literally dotted with Baroque angels and there are also statues of St. Joseph, Sebastian and Ladislav. At the top of the column stands a statue of the Virgin Mary. Kvetan stripped the column of this decoration, leaving a torso devoid of the crust of religious iconography. The whole work looks like a massive backdrop left behind by filmmakers, for example. This impression of a substitute and a marker of reality is underlined by the material used, which is laminate.
Fuscum Subnigrum cuts through the first third of the exhibition hall of the Triple Gallery at the Museum of Art and cannot be missed by the visitor. The fallen column, stripped of its decoration, thus becomes a universal monument to all the epidemics humanity has experienced and will experience. With its vagueness based on well-known shapes, it evokes nervousness, even anxiety and terror. Among other things, the work raises the burning question of whether we are able and willing to create similarly powerful monuments relating to contemporary human problems in our time.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)