Silicon in Prague (Czech Republic)

Sabrina and I went to Prague for a long weekend and had a fine old time taking in the sights of Prague and seeking out contemporary art.

David Cerny - Photo: Rick

Photograph: Sebastien Pirlet/Reuters

Possibly the most famous comtemorary Czech artist is David Cerny whose sculpture "Entropa" made quite a stir. It was created in 2009 to celebrate the Czech Republic's Presidency of the EU. Cerny initially claimed that the 8 ton sculpture was a collaboration of 27 EU artists but later divulged that it was, in fact, all him. Bulgaria was really pissed off (literally) as their country was shown as the floor of a urinal. Romania was shown as a Dracula theme park and France simply had the work Strike across their map. One story I have heard is that he was asked to give back the 350,000 Euros and take the sculpture down and another is that he took the sculpture down to protest against the way Czech prime minister Topolánek had been deposed.
We had seen some of his work in the park and climbing on the communication tower and understood that Entropa was at the first private not-for-profit museum in Prague - The  DOX Center for Contemporary Art. So off we went on the excellent public transport system to DOX.





Sadly we found out that Entropa was now on permanent display in Pilsner - (yes, there is a town called Pilsner in Czech Republic - and as a side bar it's also where the name Budweiser originally came from) - but there were several really good exhibits. I loved the Tour . . . 2010 a modified Volvo bus by Lucas Rittstein

Bus by Lucas Rittstein Photo by Rick

and Shoe Christ by Petr Motyčka which is around 19 feet high and contains around 1,500 shoes. It reminded me a little of Paul Chan's Shoe Tree which Silicon printed and was on display at MOMA a few years ago as part of their Printmaking Now exhibit (http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/79).

Petr Motyčka Shoe Christ - Photo by Rick

The ground floor exhibit by English Photographer Martin Parr (http://www.martinparr.com) was really great and of particular interest to me because of the images of the British middle class. 

Martin Parr

Street art has always fascinated me and in Prague Lennon's wall has an interesting history. In the late 80's it was a wall where students would write comments against the communist regime and the movement the students followed was called ironically Lennonism by the government. Since then the wall has traditionally had paintings on Lennon (not Lenin) and words to Beatles songs etc. The wall is owned, curiously, by the Knights of the Maltese Cross who at some point gave up trying to paint it and now it is an ever changing canvas.

Lennon wall Prague - Photo by Rick

Just around the corner for the wall is this bizarre wall / fence where couples come and attach a padlock to the fence as a symbol of love. Go figure . . .

Love Locks Prague - Photo: Rick

Finally we were surprised to see in a little store just by the Charles Bridge the Little Wanderer by Yoshitomo Nara which comes from our friend Larry Mangel of Cereal Art in Philadelphia. When we went into the store and told the nice assistant she told us she had had two other couples from Philadelphia in the store that day and that the store was owned by a Czech Glass artist who lives in New York. Small world indeed.

ARTEL Store Prague

Posted by Rick