Holy Philip Guston, Pray for Us at CANADA gallery by Joanna Malinowska

Godzilla and Jesus. Courtesy of the author.

By KENDALL KRANTZ July 15, 2024

“I get my cow bones from the egg stall at my farmer’s market.” On opening night, Joanna Malinowska discussed biomaterial sourcing practices as she gestured towards a ladder of cow ribs hanging from the ceiling in the center of the gallery. 

In her fifth solo exhibition with CANADA Gallery, Malinowska invites viewers into an anxious, scattered realm where the surreal meets the critical, merging profound spiritual musings with biting social commentary. Titled Holy Philip Guston, Pray for Us (June 6 - July 19), Malinowska explores the tension between human desires to build, wage war, and more generally wrestle with our place in the natural world. 

I found the tenuous aesthetic and conceptual connections of the distinct sculptural installations challenging. To fully appreciate the work, I needed to do some background research into Canadian painter Philip Guston, who was known for freely exploring surrealism, abstraction, and figurative works. His canon is defined by imaginative freedom, cartoonish styling, and addressing social issues head on. His late works are referred to as “pile-ups” and often featured truncated body parts or scenes of violence. Suddenly, Malinowska’s piles of bones and sculpted weapons converged into a larger artistic conversation. 

Malinowska draws inspiration from the notion of the Ivory Tower—both a metaphorical sanctuary for intellectual pursuits and a symbol fraught with ecological and ethical implications. She mixes the organic with the profoundly inorganic, pairing oyster shells with expanding foam and ceramic with bones. 

“Is the Godzilla for scale?” a visitor asked, and Malinowska nodded solemnly. 

Expanding Foam Oyster Shells. Courtesy of the author.

Behind a tiny, golden-crowned Christ towers an unglazed sculpture of the famous lizard. Central to the exhibit, this is the root of Malinowska’s ivy tower concept, inspired by the towering statue of Christ the King in Świebodzin, Poland. Erected in 2010 and once the tallest statue of Christ in the world, this sculpture, with its imposing yet uninspired presence, ignites Malinowska’s imagination.

In all honesty, the pairing confused me. Then I found out Malinowska has shown at the Yokohama Museum of Art in Yokohama and has work in Takashi Murakami’s Collection in Japan. While the theme of this exhibition, ivory towers, evokes silos, the exhibit itself is extremely interconnected, global, and referential. 

Soundscape Room. Courtesy of the author.

The highlight of the exhibition for me was a walk-in tower taking up an entire corner of the main gallery space, a commentary on capitalistic violence through the language of poaching through broken ivory. There are sculpted objects inside, referencing some of Philip Guston’s works. 

Equally immersive is the nearby 8-channel soundscape installation, Morning in 1953 (Messiaen Reversed, Birds Released), created in collaboration with C.T. Jasper (with whom Malinowska collaborated on a two-person survey show at Muzeum Emigracji in Gdynia, Poland). Standing in the space, eyes closed, evokes an experience of a forest soundscape’s uncanny valley. 

"Holy Philip Guston, Pray for Us" is a testament to Malinowska’s ability to weave personal history, cultural critique, and imaginative speculation into a thought-provoking (if somewhat confounding) body of work. Her sculptures and installations stand as monuments to the complexities of human desire and the ever-present tension between creation and destruction.

For more information, visit the CANADA Gallery website. WM