Walking through the historic centre of Olomouc, you will come across startling murals depicting Marie Skłodowska-Curie and the 'selfie king' Edward VII, a well-known regular at Marienbad. This unusual duo attracts attention and brings history and art closer to the modern viewer through references to mass culture.

The phenomenon of Czech murals

Murals on Czech soil are a relatively new phenomenon. Until recently, murals did not attract the interest of official cultural institutions and street art was mainly associated with the subculture of graffiti artists, which flourished in the 1990s. The situation has changed in the new millennium, as evidenced by the mural by Dalibor Vybíral (alias Oliver Heller), created in 2018 as part of the Academia Film Olomouc popular science film festival.

Mural with radiation in the background

The official communiqué of the festival organiser states that Skłodowska-Curie, the Polish Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of radium and polonium, epitomises scientific progress, rationalism and the still marginalised presence of women in science. In the mural, Skłodowska-Curie is depicted standing up, wearing a long black dress, holding a round-bottomed flask and a vial of radium. The monumental work is almost seven metres high and took more than three days to complete.

Like the 'Selfie King' from 2015, Vybíral's mural is a temporary work and will disappear with the construction of the new Museum of Contemporary Art building on the neighbouring property.