Cerny's wit throughout the town

There seems to be a current of humor running through the Czech art community. Throughout Prague, we kept running into the statues of David Cerny, a well-known sculptor and social satirist who does his job very well.

One story that I loved was from awhile ago. Apparently, when the Soviets "liberated" Prague from the Nazis, they placed a tank on a pedestal in a square (which became known as Soviet tank square). When the Velvet Revolution happened and Czechoslovakia peacefully transitioned out of communism, this statue seemed quite out of place. David Cerny went and painted the tank pink. For this he was arrested and the tank repainted green. However, a group of parliamentarians then went and re-repainted it pink. They had the protection of parliamentary immunity. Their action sparked Cerny's release from custody.

We came to one of his statues in the courtyard of the Franz Kafka Museum. These two gents are urinating in a small pond. The pond itself is the shape of the Czech Republic. Better still, their hips swivel and their hands move and, so doing, they spell out letters in the pond, which correspond to Czech slogans. Delightfully witty and with good aesthetics to boot.

Another set of statues were found in Kampa Park. These oversized crawling babies were funny. Well, at least until I saw their faces, which had been scrunched up into an odd looking barcode.

As others were doing, Kevika and Carolyn attempted to go for a short ride on the baby's back.

As the quote on a wall of a local museum said "If a nation's culture survives, then so too does the nation." Cerny's doing his best to keep this nation humming.