2024-04-13 01:24:14
Huge butterfly wings extending from one side over Spálená Street and from the other over Národní třída. The owner of the Máj department store decided to place a sculpture by the sculptor David Černý on the facade of the cultural monument, thus changing the face of the center of Prague. Experts disagree on whether the work decorates the building or detracts from it. It is not even clear if it will be a temporary or permanent installation.
It is supposed to be a cross between a spitfire fighter and a butterfly paying tribute to Czechoslovak airmen during the Second World War. At the same time, it could commemorate two important NATO anniversaries – 75 years since the founding of the alliance and 25 years since the Czech Republic joined it, the Seznam Zprávy server reported. The fuselages of the planes do not lack a characteristic nose, the wings with a span of over ten meters are supposed to light up and move.
Its current owner, Amadeus Real Estate, which has been renovating the building for the past two years, decided to give the department store from the 1970s a new look. “The facade will feature an artwork by sculptor David Černý,” she announced in March. However, the form of the proposal was not published by her, but by the Club for Old Prague. And the sculptor is now objecting to writing about something that no one has been able to see yet. “I would welcome a serious approach and discussion about the existing thing,” says David Černý, adding that the space for debate will be after the installation of the work. But even he doesn’t know when exactly that will happen.
Even now, however, the planned sculpture of Černý did not please Pavel Karous, a sculptor focusing on fine art in public space. From his point of view, the cultural monument is destroyed by such an intervention and “current postmodernism, which does not belong to the architecture of the 70s” is added to it. According to him, the layers of different historical periods should be visible in the city, but not in the cultural monuments. A work of art should ideally be created either at the same time as architecture, or at least be from the same period, he argues. “As in the case of the genius Jož Plečnik,” he gives the example of the famous Slovenian architect’s work at Prague Castle.
According to Karous, many of David Černý’s works appear in the public space today, because one or more developers decide instead of an expert commission in an architectural-art competition. The choice is therefore always subject to the same taste. Right next to the Máj department store, Franz Kafka’s Black Head has been rotating since 2014, belonging to the competing Quadrio shopping center. The author’s sculpture of the mythical Lilith embracing the Karlin Fragment building also caused controversy. The statue of Černý called Pegasus can be found in the area of the former Waltrovka in Prague’s Jinonice and in Ruzyna. The creatures are half horse, half jet engines.
“So it’s even more tragic than under the previous regime. There, we could probably be more concerned that the selection of works would be subject to the taste of one client, i.e. the state party. Paradoxically, then, transparent processes worked relatively well, especially in the 1960s,” recalls Pavel The Karous period, when, among other things, several buildings in a unique Brussels style were created, for example Ostrava’s Vítkovice railway station, which has been a cultural monument since 2020.
Journalist and author of the book on David Černý entitled Fifty Licks Jan H. Vitvar from the Respekt weekly does not agree with such a view. “The idea that under the previous regime the city patiently selected works of art in public competitions to which everyone had access is a fairy tale,” he says. According to him, during the totalitarian regime, Prague managed public space poorly and did not communicate with the public, which is why they are now afraid to touch it and everything remains in the private sector. “It has flipped to the other extreme, the city does not decide on public space at all,” he summarizes.
Karous sees the causes of the city’s inactivity elsewhere. “The city district, the National Institute of Monuments, and Prague’s preservationists from the municipality can intervene in the proposals. However, this is not customary in the Czech Republic, because then they would receive criticism for interfering with private property, which in our country is considered a golden calf superior to all other laws ” he says. “At the same time, on a legal level, it is not like that. Monument laws and the right to private property are on the same level and they must negotiate with each other,” he adds.
Zoubek should have “appropriated” the public space as well
Vitvar has been following the work of David Černý for a long time, he is personally familiar with him, and he saw the spitfire crossed with a butterfly earlier in the artist’s museum called the Musoleum. He explains that some of the sculptor’s works are intended for specific locations from the start, while others are more free-flowing. “I think this is the second example,” he guesses. According to him, the advantage of the work is that it can be removed without fundamentally damaging the building – just like the babies on the Žižkov transmitter by the same author.
The journalist sees in the proposal a continuation of the very first sculpture, which the artist became famous for. It was a Trabant walking on human legs, reminiscent of the escape of East Germans through Prague to the West. “He likes connecting machines with people or animals in the appropriate scale, it is an essential part of his work, and the sculpture for Máj follows on from this. It is his classic work, only it is large and people are always embarrassed by the fact that it is exposed in a public space ” he means.
According to Jan H. Vitvar, it is not about monopolization by one artist. It is more about the fact that Černý has a number of ideas and has found partners in developers or investors with whom he can realize them. “In the 1990s, it was said that public space was monopolized by Olbram Zoubek. At that time, after years of not being able to do anything in public space, he naturally received many orders. But if you look at it today, there are not so many realizations, even though that’s how it worked then,” he offers a comparison with the sculptor who, for example, is the author of the monument to victims of communism in Újezda.
However, Pavel Karous is convinced that one should tread carefully around the cultural monuments in the historic center of the city. “If an enlightened developer built a department store in the suburbs, where I think new shopping centers belong, and there were kinetic sculptures of David Černý in this style, I would not be against it at all. However, in the case of Brutalism, which is already under threat, in the center cities, it would require more consideration,” he says.
According to him, sensitive integration into the center of Prague was successful, for example, with the Viselec sculpture by the same author. However, Máje considers the case to be an “aggressive visual recoding” of the object.
The Máj department store was opened in April 1975, designed by architects John Eisler, Miroslav Masák and Martin Rajniš. The photo is from 1988. | Photo: Tesco
Butterflies just for a moment?
Since it is a protected building, the intervention must be approved by the preservationists. But the whole thing takes place in silence and without public debate. The Department of Historic Preservation of the Prague Municipality refused to comment, stating that the proceedings in the matter had not been completed, and referred the editors to the owner of the building. He also did not want to provide Aktuálně.cz with any information or visualizations. Even the original architects of the house, John Eisler and Miroslav Masák, did not comment before the publication of the article. The last of them, Martin Rajniš, refused to speak.
The shape of the building with the moving statues as well as the photos of the butterflies themselves were published last month by the civic association dealing with the preservation of monuments Klub za staru Praha, which informed the editors that they obtained the images through a private investigation. They are opposed to their location. It is said that thanks to the attractive motif of butterflies, it is a typical kitsch, which is intended to fascinate passers-by and to be more of a “commercial eye-catcher disguised as a socially important idea” – i.e. a tribute to Czechoslovak aviators.
According to the association, the municipality has already approved the plan despite the fact that the National Institute of Monuments unequivocally rejected it and issued three expert opinions. “First, the investor submitted a proposal to build anchors into the Maya facade, which would then hold something. The National Institute of Monuments ruled it out because it did not see the point in it – the Maya facade is a very valuable work of art in itself, it is pure, high-quality, cultivated architecture and no accessories , which would detract from its character and were not necessary, for example from the point of view of security, it does not need,” says the institute’s spokeswoman Andrea Holasová.
Later came the second proposal, where the fuselages of the airplanes with butterfly wings were already placed using anchors. The monument institute again excluded him. In the third phase, he did not even comment on the plane itself.
However, the Memorial Institute only issues written statements. If the municipality does not agree with them, they have to justify it, but the city decides. In the worst case scenario, the Institute can submit a so-called dissolution to the Ministry of Culture, which then has the final say. But he is not going to do that, because the installation is supposed to be temporary according to the investor’s proposal. “But we will definitely be on the lookout in a year,” assures Holasová from the monument institute.
At the same time, he points out that he does not evaluate whether they like the design artistically or not. “The essence of our opinion is that no such addition has anything to do with the Máj Department Store, even if it would be artistically phenomenal in itself. Due to the unique design of the facade combining a reference to functionalism with elements of then-current brutalism, it was declared a cultural monument. Every window, strip, cladding, the panel was solved with forethought and a firm creative intention to achieve the desired expression,” he explains.
According to her information, the plane should reach eight meters over the facade and each will need its own fire extinguisher. “That means additional sprinklers on the roof that might not otherwise be there,” he mentions.
Similar complaints are raised by the Old Prague Club, which is probably the loudest critic of the proposal. With the difference that for him even the alleged temporary nature of the proposal is not a valid argument. “For us, butterflies on Mája are not acceptable in any case, we consider them to be kitsch. Moreover, we don’t really believe in the temporary nature, it is undoubtedly quite an expensive matter,” says the vice-president of the association Kateřina Bečková.
Video: Prague is in a straitjacket, says Jiřičná
Prague should have been more courageous after 1989, renowned architect Eva Jiřičná said in the Spotlight program this February. | Video: Jakub Zuzánek