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Jerzy Fober, “Fallen Angel”, 1993 – a powerful contemporary sculpture of loss and exile
Jerzy Fober’s sculpture “Fallen Angel” (1993) is one of the artist’s most striking works, in which traditional figurative sculpture is charged with the existential anxiety of the modern age. A curled-up figure rests on two bent beams covered with black polychromy, enhancing the sense of weight, collapse and loss of balance. The surface of the body is full of cracks and cavities, as if the very matter of the sculpture carried the marks of pain, time and spiritual disintegration.
Particular attention is drawn to the opening at the back of the head, reminiscent of a wound or violent blow, and to the knotted protrusions on the back that suggest the places where wings once were. Fober abandons pathos in favour of raw, dramatic clarity: this angel without wings no longer rises towards the heavens but lies constrained and crushed by its own weight and the structure on which it rests. The bent beams appear to sag beneath the figure, visually reinforcing the theme of downfall and spiritual defeat.
“Fallen Angel” can be read as a symbolic story of exile, loss of grace and the inability to rise again. The work fits into the context of Polish contemporary sculpture engaging with the tension between the sacred and the profane, while remaining a universal metaphor of human weakness and broken ideals. It is a compelling choice for collectors and institutions looking for expressive, figurative sculpture with strong spiritual and existential content.
Keywords: Jerzy Fober “Fallen Angel” sculpture, contemporary Polish sculpture, figurative religious art, fallen angel motif in art, polychrome sculpture, modern sacred art.
