Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue (Polish: Pozdrowienia z Alej Jerozolimskich) is a site-specific artwork in the form of a life-size artificial date palm. It was designed by Polish artist Joanna Rajkowska, and is located on the Charles de Gaulle Roundabout (Rondo gen. Charles’a de Gaulle’a), where Jerusalem Avenue (Aleje Jerozolimskie) intersects with New World Street (Nowy Świat) in the Polish capital of Warsaw. It was erected on December 12, 2002.
The work was intended by Rajkowska to draw attention to "the absence of the Jewish community in Poland" by highlighting and challenging "the invisibility of the street’s name." The project was thus intended as a social experiment,Joanna Rajkowska, Where the Beast is Buried. Winchester, UK & Washington, USA: Zero Books 2013. P268 an anti-monument that metaphorically brings the “vanished Jews back into the landscape of contemporary Poland”.Uilleam Blacker, Spatial Dialogues and Holocaust Memory in Contemporary Polish Art: Yael Bartana, Rafał Betlejewski and Joanna Rajkowska. The Open Arts Journal 3, 2014. P173.
Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue has become one of the most iconic art projects realised in Poland's public space after 1989 and its meaning has continuously evolved and extended. Since its inception, the palm tree location has become a prominent site for political and social activists, including women, nurses, LGBTQ+ communities, environmental activists, protesters against the war in Ukraine, and other groups.
Inspiration The palm tree was inspired by Joanna Rajkowska's and fellow artist Artur Żmijewski's visit to Israel in 2001 during the Second Intifada. During their stay in Jerusalem, they witnessed distant explosions, the sound of Israeli helicopters over Bethlehem and Rajkowska provoked an incident in the Orthodox district of Mea Shearim when she lay down across a pavement and only stood up when she was about to be hit by an enraged Hassidic Jew.Rajkowska, Where the Beast is Buried, 3. These experiences left Rajkowska with “an omnipresent sense of fear and powerlessness”Żmijewski, Drżące ciała, 304-5. and a “profound sense of incomprehension.”
Upon her return to Warsaw, Rajkowska researched the history of Jerusalem Avenue in Warsaw and discovered that the street was named after an 18th-century Jewish settlement which existed for two years before it was dismantled by a group of merchants and craftsmen, jealous of the settlement’s economic prosperity.Multiple authors. Rajkowska: Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej 2009. Pp. 30-31. ISBN 978-8361006732. The settlement was called New Jerusalem and was established at present day Plac Zawiszy (Zawisza Square), then on the outskirts of Warsaw.Jacek Leociak. Biografie ulic. O żydowskich ulicach Warszawy: od narodzin po Zagładę. Warsaw: Dom Spotkań z Historią 2017. 12-13. . Rajkowska was also impacted by a postcard found by Żmijewski in the Old Town in Yerushalayim, which featured a bare hill, a single palm tree and the words “Greetings from Hebron”. To her, the postcard looked as if it had been printed in Poland in the 1980s.Żmijewski, Drżące ciała, p. 305.
These connections, together with the ongoing Israeli aggression in occupied Palestine, highlighted for Rajkowska the historical and affective links between Jerusalem and Warsaw. They also produced a sense of profound anxiety linked to Rajkowska’s family history, which included her father and grandmother’s escape from a train bound for Auschwitz. Back in Warsaw, Rajkowska started to feel the acute void left by the Holocaust and experienced “a short circuit, [as if] the frames from Warsaw and Jerusalem overlapped.” Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue was therefore created both as a result of the trip to Israel and Rajkowska’s mourning over the genocide that had taken place in her country. The project is hence a comment on Polish-Jewish history and an expression of a transgenerational trauma, which tragically connects Poland and Israel. Before the Second World War, 30% of Warsaw's population was Jewish (about 370,000 people)Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak. Getto warszawskie. Przewodnik po nieistniejącym mieście. Warsaw: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów 2001 in comparison to the current estimated population of 0.125% (less than 2,000 people).
The initial concept for the project emerged when, after their return to Warsaw, Żmijewski and Rajkowska were writing a text about the situation in Israel and no conclusion seemed obvious. Struggling with expressing herself in textual form, Rajkowska suddenly had an idea of how to engage with the topic as an artist. She envisaged putting up an espalier of palm trees along Jerusalem Avenue, a street she knew very well. In her own words, Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue started as “a caprice of imagination in the form of a question: what would it be like if Jerusalem Avenue in Warsaw was suddenly planted with palm trees, like the streets of Jerusalem?” Unable to carry out a project on such a scale, Rajkowska opted for a singular tree.
Rajkowska considers her artistic construction to be Leftist.
Location The location of Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue is topographically, historically, politically and socially significant. It is located at the De Gaulle Roundabout at the intersection of Nowy Świat street and Jerusalem Avenue. The latter is one of the main streets in Warsaw, featuring the Central Railway Station and the Stalinist Palace of Culture and Science. Nowy Świat, meanwhile, is home to many iconic city sites and governmental buildings in Warsaw, including the Old Town, the Presidential Palace, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Polish Parliament building. De Gaulle Roundabout itself is an important intersection, located by the former Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, which became Warsaw Stock Exchange following the fall of Communism in 1989. During the Second World War, there were numerous Nazi round-ups and murders of Polish civilians in the area and transports of prisoners to the Gestapo Detention Centre on Szucha Avenue. Both streets were almost completely destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Rajkowska has stated that “the name Jerusalem Avenue is a sign of our history. […] The name has grown into our culture to such an extent that nobody can hear what it means.”Żmijewski, Drżące ciała, p. 306.
Construction
The palm is a life-size replica of a hybrid date and coconut palm tree, mounted on a slightly elevated circular foundation covered with self-seeding weeds. It is a mixed-media art installation, made of metal, PVC, fibreglass, polyurethane resin and natural date palm bark. The 12-meter (36 feet) tall structure is not permanently attached to the ground, instead, it is mounted on an octagonal metal foundation, a so-called grill, weighed down by concrete prefabricates, covered with soil and self-seeding weeds.Artur Żmijewski, Drżące ciała. Rozmowy z artystami. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej 2007. Page 296. . The trunk is supported by a steel pipe and covered with natural date palm bark. Each leaf is made of fiberglass and resin mounted on a steel core, and attached to the trunk with metal bolts. During its existence, the installation has gone through several technical restorations to stabilize its structure, and ensure durability. The present combination of artificial and natural materials give the replica a natural appearance and make it resistant to weather conditions. The tree itself was made by an American company Soul-utions.Com.
Installation and maintenance Construction of the artwork started as a partisan project and was organised by a small team of people: Michał Rudnicki (architect), Katarzyna Łyszkowicz (representative of Anda Rottenberg's foundation – the Institute of Art Promotion) and the artist herself, with financial backing from German, Norwegian, American and Polish companies, institutions and individuals. The trunk was manufactured in Escondido near San Diego on the Mexican-US border by a company based in Las Vegas and transported to Warsaw via Los Angeles, Houston and Gdynia.Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej, 38-9. When the tree was erected in December 2002, tram traffic was suspended for two hours by the Warsaw Tram Company.
Initially, Greeting from Jerusalem Avenue was managed by the Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Art. However, as no art institution wanted to assume full responsibility for the project, by 2003 the installation did not have a formalised legal situation and had generated debt due to the unauthorised occupation of public space. To preserve its existence, the Palm Tree Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Palmy) was formed, including major figures in the Polish art world. The Committee initiated the process of changing the work’s legal status from a “non-road object” to “a small piece of architecture” and, eventually, to “an artistic installation.” However, from December 2003 until late 2005, the project languished in legal limbo and in November 2004, the remaining leaves were taken down in protest at the situation.
A survey conducted in November 2005 showed that 72% of Varsovians supported the project.Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej, 58. In spring 2006, the project received financial support from the Municipal Garden Works Company to be restored. The restoration, however, was not successful, as the right-wing Law and Justice local government did not provide sufficient funds. A grassroots initiative, organised among others by artists, philosophers and opera singers, allowed for the purchase of leaves which were elaborate, yet short-lived. In 2007, thanks to financial assistance from the National Depository for Securities, the installation underwent a complete makeover, acquired a new structural head as well as leaves that were tested in aerodynamic tunnels at speeds of up to 300 km/h. In 2012, Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue became part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN). In December 2020, to mark the eighteenth anniversary of the installation, MSN opened a Palmiarnia (palm tree house), a temporary mini-exhibition of artefacts significant to the history of the project, located at Nowy Świat 18/20 in the immediate vicinity of De Gaulle Roundabout.
Critical reception Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue attracted media attention before it was even installed. The earliest articles date back to 2001. Once the installation was unveiled, it received immediate attention from the Polish and foreign press. By 2003, numerous articles had been published, including in Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Los Angeles Times, the Polish edition of Newsweek, and Gazeta Wyborcza, a major Polish newspaper. The coverage focused on the political transformation in Poland, accession to the European Union, and the country’s economic development. The Newsweek issue featured an image of Lech Wałęsa and the Solidarity movement logo in front of the tree.
Both Rajkowska and the general public have linked the tree to the idiomatic Polish expression "palma odbija" (literally: "the palm tree sprouts/bounces back"), used to describe crazy or extravagant behaviour or indicate something unthinkable, beyond one's ken, or simply something idiotic. Early publications also emphasised the carnivalesque character of the palm tree and described it as an exotic and playful symbol of the new Poland: a young capitalist country with big hopes in a unified Europe. The original context of the Polish-Jewish connections was almost completely lost.