Prague has a special talent for hiding strange things between beautiful ones.
Gothic stands next to glass. Baroque sits beside brutalism. Saint Wenceslas gazes down from his monument onto a city where, just a few hundred meters away, his own grotesque copy sits on its belly atop a dead horse.
And no one is particularly surprised.
In the first part of this story about David Černý’s art, we saw Prague as a city of provocation, absurdity, and mistrust toward monuments. Now we go further—beyond the most obvious center, toward Karlín, Žižkov, Nové Butovice, and places where David Černý’s sculptures in Prague become part of the architecture, history, and daily life.
Because Černý doesn’t build galleries.
He uses the city that already exists.
Sometimes he sticks something to it.
Sometimes he hangs something on it.
Sometimes he makes the sculpture move.
And sometimes he places an object before you so absurd that first comes laughter, and only later the question:
what exactly did the author want to say with this?
And perhaps it is from this question that Unconventional Prague begins best.
Lilith – The Giant Emancipated Woman Hugging a Building
Location: Karlín, Franšíz-Sokolovská / Rohanské nábřeží
In October 2022, one of David Černý’s most spectacular installations appeared in the modern part of Prague.
It is hard not to notice.
Lilith is about 24 meters high and weighs around 35 tons. The monumental female figure, made of polished steel, is integrated into the residential complex Fragment. But she does not stand in front of the building like a classic monument. She is not an addition placed on a lawn.
She enters into physical contact with the architecture.
She hugs it.
She supports it.
Or perhaps she tries to subjugate it.
It depends on where you are looking from.
The official description of the work indicates that the huge figure is part of a larger installation. Monumental fragments of limbs—a hand and a leg—also appear in the space around Fragment, giving the impression that a gigantic body is hidden beneath modern Prague, of which we see only individual parts.[^1]
However, the most spectacular element is the kinetic one.
After midnight, Lilith’s huge head rotates 180 degrees.[^2]
Movement at this scale works completely differently than in small installations.
At first, nothing really happens.
Then, the thirty-five-ton woman begins to slowly turn her head.
And for a few moments, the building stops looking like a building.
It becomes a set.
Who exactly is Lilith?
Here it is worth sorting out the popular story.
Lilith is not simply the “first woman from the Bible” in the sense that the biblical Eve is Eve. Her figure developed primarily in later Jewish traditions, mythology, and folklore. In some stories, she is depicted as Adam’s first partner, who refused to submit to a man and left Eden.
Over time, she became an extremely ambiguous figure.
A demon.
A rebel.
An independent woman.
A threat to the established order.
And in much newer interpretations—also a symbol of female autonomy and emancipation.
Černý consciously exploits this ambiguity. He describes Lilith himself as a figure associated with femininity, rebellion, and independence, while reminding us of her demonic dimension in part of the tradition.[^1]
And precisely because of this, the giant woman in Karlín is not a simple monument to the “strong woman.”
She is more uncomfortable.
Because it is unclear whether she protects.
Whether she controls.
Whether she supports the building.
Or perhaps the building tries to keep her in place.
Lilith and Modern Karlín
The location itself is not accidental either.
Karlín is one of those parts of Prague that best show the transformation of the city after 1989.
Former industrial areas, warehouses, and less representative parts of the district have changed over the years into spaces for offices, apartments, restaurants, and contemporary architecture.
There is no Gothic decoration here.
No need to pretend it is the 18th century.
And that is exactly why the huge steel Lilith fits this place.
New Prague gets a new mythology.
Not a king.
Not a saint.
Not a general on a horse.
A naked woman the height of a multi-story building.
This is very much in Černý’s style.
Interpretations
- Empathetic mother-city: Lilith hugs the building—it can be read as a figure protecting the community and literally supporting the architecture.
- Feminist strength: The later cultural interpretation of Lilith as a woman refusing submission gives a very strong emancipatory context.
- Rebellion against order: The mythical Lilith also represents disobedience. In this interpretation, her huge scale is almost a manifestation of presence.
- Human vs. Architecture: With Lilith, it is hard to decide what is more important—the sculpture or the building. The boundary between artwork and architecture is blurred.
- Controversies: Due to its erotic, monumental, and dominating character, the installation has provoked discussions from the beginning. And that is probably exactly the point.
If you search the internet for “Lilith Prague” or “sculpture of a woman on a building in Prague”, you will find not only one of Černý’s largest works but also an example of completely new public art in Prague.
Trifot – The Mutated Tripod with a Camera-Like Half-Gaze
Location: Czech Photo Centre, Praha 5 – Nové Butovice
In 2016, Černý installed Trifot in front of the Czech Photo Centre—a 12-meter sculpture that is a hybrid of a tripod, a camera, and something that looks like a visitor from classic science fiction literature.[^3]
And indeed: the inspiration from fantasy is not accidental.
The name and form of the work refer, among other things, to “The Day of the Triffids” by John Wyndham, a novel about a world attacked by moving plant-like organisms.[^4]
Trifot looks as if it has just taken a step.
Or is about to take one.
Its “head” is formed by various types of cameras. Lenses become eyes. Tripods become legs.
The history of photography is turned into a huge mechanical beast.
But the best part begins when a person realizes that Trifot is not just being looked at.
It also looks back.
A camera system tracks a fragment of the surrounding space, and selected images of passersby can appear on screens located nearby.[^3]
Suddenly, the situation reverses.
You came to take a photo of the sculpture.
And the sculpture takes a picture of you.
Who is the photographer here?
This question would have had a slightly different meaning twenty years ago.
Today we live in a world of street cameras, smartphones, surveillance, facial recognition algorithms, and social media to which we voluntarily upload thousands of images of ourselves every day.
Trifot stands on the border between fascination with technology and unease.
Černý himself spoke of the work as something somewhat “Orwellian,” but at the same time as a tribute paid to the technology of photography.[^3]
And this is much more interesting than a simple critique of surveillance.
Černý does not say:
technology is bad.
Rather, he asks:
do we still notice how often we are being observed?
The Camera That Grew to Monster Size
When a photographer holds a camera, everything is clear.
The human controls the tool.
In Trifot, the proportions are reversed.
The camera is larger than the human.
It stands over him.
It looks.
It records.
What was meant to serve humans in observing the world begins to observe humans itself.
And then the innocent history of photography turns into a story about surveillance.
Interpretations
- Surveillance city: We live in an era of surveillance—often so common that we have stopped noticing it.
- Technology and privacy: Trifot observes passersby, but also reminds us that we ourselves produce and publish our own images every day.
- History of photography: The cameras forming the sculpture’s head refer to different stages of the development of photography.
- Human vs. Machine: The device, which was meant to be a tool, gets legs and begins to live its own life.
- Science fiction in public space: The reference to “The Day of the Triffids” makes Nové Butovice look for a moment like a fragment of a sci-fi movie.
So if you are interested in Alternative Prague and places outside the strict center, Trifot is a very good reason to get on the metro and ride further than Old Town.
Miminka – Growing Symbols Among Codes (2000–2019)
Locations:
- Žižkov Tower: temporarily in 2000, permanently from 2001, replaced with more durable versions in 2019.
- Bronze variants at Kampa Museum—from 2008.
There are sculptures that stand next to a building.
And there are those that change the way we look at the entire building.
David Černý’s Miminka belong to the second group.
The Žižkov Television Tower was weird enough even before their appearance.
Tall, futuristic structure that aroused extreme emotions from the start. Some saw in it an interesting example of late 20th-century technological architecture. Others—a brutal object squeezing into Prague’s historical panorama.
And then Černý added children.
Ten huge babies began to climb the structure.
And the tower changed its character.
From an infrastructure object, it became a gigantic sculpture.
Official sources of the artist state that the Babies versions had been created earlier, but on the Žižkov Television Tower, the installation became a permanent element in 2001.[^5]
In 2019, the figures on the tower were replaced with new, more durable versions.[^6]
Children Who Have No Faces
The most disturbing element appears only up close.
Miminka do not have ordinary faces.
In place of features appears a deformed sign resembling a code, a mechanical stamp, or a kind of computer input.
And it is here that the “sweet big babies” stop being sweet.
Černý himself described them as something between childish innocence and unease related to technology, commercialization, and a world that begins to treat people as just another unit in the system.[^5]
You can see code.
You can see a screen.
You can see a lack of individuality.
In each case, the mechanism is similar:
a child, which should be a symbol of individuality and a new beginning, has no face of its own.
Miminka at Kampa
If you do not want to look at the children from the bottom of the tower, a much closer encounter awaits at Kampa.
Since 2008, three bronze versions of Babies have been located there.[^5]
You can approach.
See the scale.
Examine the deformed faces.
And it is then that you best see the characteristic mixture for Černý.
First:
“What a big baby.”
After a moment:
“Why does it have no face?”
And a little later:
“Is this still funny?”
Interpretations and Curiosities
- Dehumanization: Babies without normal faces can be read as a symbol of technological standardization of humans.
- Technology: The artist himself linked Babies, among other things, with unease regarding the commercialization of technology.[^5]
- The city accepted them: The installation on the tower, which was initially not an obvious candidate for a permanent symbol of the city, became one of the most recognizable elements of the Žižkov panorama.
- Young vampires / “angels of destruction”: Černý himself used a term for Babies similar to “angels of destruction”—creatures that are both innocent and potentially dangerous.[^5]
- Two completely different experiences: On the tower, they are part of the panorama. At Kampa, they become almost a physical encounter with a strange, mutated body.
For those searching for keywords “Žižkov what to see”, “Žižkov Television Tower Prague” or “David Černý’s children”, Miminka are today practically a mandatory stop.
But it is worth going there also for Žižkov itself.
Because it is here that the less postcard-like Prague begins.
Saint Wenceslas on a Dead Horse – Pride Upside Down (1999–2000)
Location: Lucerna Passage
In the Lucerna Passage in Prague hangs one of the most recognizable and simultaneously most Czech works by David Černý.
Saint Wenceslas sits on a horse.
For now, everything looks familiar.
Only the horse is dead.
It hangs upside down.
Its tongue hangs out of its mouth.
And the patron saint of the Czechs still sits on its belly with the expression of a person who clearly intends to pretend that the situation is completely normal.
The sculpture Kůň / Saint Wenceslas was created in 1999 and refers directly to one of the most important Czech symbols—the monumental statue of Saint Wenceslas standing on the nearby Wenceslas Square.[^7]
The original says:
state, tradition, continuity, history.
Černý answers:
what if the horse is already dead, and we still pretend we are riding?
Interestingly, such an interpretation is not exclusively a later addition of meaning to the work.
Černý himself spoke of a situation where the national horse falls, everything is turned upside down, and people still behave as if nothing special has happened.[^7]
This is a very strong comment on the post-transformation state.
But also a much broader metaphor.
A Monument That Lost Its Verticality
Monuments of power and heroes are almost always vertical.
The figure stands.
The horse stands.
The column stands.
The state stands.
History stands.
In Lucerna, everything is reversed.
The horse hangs.
Wenceslas, instead of leading the nation, sits on the belly of a dead animal.
Monumentality turns into absurdity.
And yet the national symbol remains instantly recognizable.
And that is exactly what makes the joke work.
If Černý had hung an anonymous knight on an anonymous horse, we would have a funny sculpture.
Because he chooses Saint Wenceslas, we get a comment on the entire tradition of depicting Czech statehood.
Interpretations:
- Deconstruction of the myth: The national symbol is preserved, but its classical form disintegrates before our eyes.
- The state on a dead horse: One can see here a comment on the political and social situation of the Czech Republic at the end of the 1990s.
- Pretending normality: The horse is dead, the world has been turned upside down, but the rider still maintains dignity.
- Critique of the establishment: The work is often linked with a critique of the Czech political class of the era, although reducing it exclusively to one specific person would be too narrow.
- Parody of monumentality: Černý takes the classic language of the monument and destroys it without destroying the symbol itself.
So if you type “Lucerna Palace Prague”, “Lucerna Passage Prague” or “David Černý’s horse” into a search engine, be sure to look up.
In Prague, the most interesting things are often found exactly there.
The Hanging Freud – The Intellectualist in Suspension (1997–2007)
Location: Husova Street
This is one of the best proofs that during a walk in Prague, you sometimes need to stop looking at shop windows and cobblestones.
You need to look up.
A man hangs over the street.
With one hand, he holds onto a metal structure.
The other hangs freely by his side.
From below, for a moment, he looks like a real person standing a step from death.
This is Sigmund Freud.
The work Man Hanging Out / Viselec was created in 1996, and in Prague it was placed over Husova Street in 1997.[^8]
And here it is worth correcting popular interpretations.
Černý did not choose Freud by chance.
He explained that he created the work at a time when, at the end of the 20th century, there was much talk about the coming new century and the role of the intellectualist in the future world. Freud was for him a symbol of 19th-century intellectualism and a man who created psychoanalysis.[^8]
Therefore, the hanging figure does not have to be a story exclusively about suicide.
Much more interesting is the word:
suspension.
Freud is not falling.
Not yet.
He is not standing safely either.
He is in between.
The Intellectualist Who No Longer Has Ground Beneath His Feet
The end of the 20th century was a time of huge changes.
The Eastern Bloc fell.
The political map of Europe changed.
Technology began to accelerate.
The Internet slowly entered daily life.
Ideologies that for decades seemed permanent suddenly began to look like remnants of the old world.
And over the Prague street hangs Freud.
A man who tried to look into the depths of the human psyche, himself no longer has ground beneath his feet.
This is an image of the intellectualist’s uncertainty.
But at the same time, it is not entirely pessimistic.
Freud still holds on.
A Sculpture Taken for a Real Human
The realistic form of the installation often caused passersby in various cities to take the figure for a living human.
This is also part of the strength of this work.
A museum sculpture is signed from the start.
You know you are looking at art.
Here the reaction is often the opposite.
First:
“Someone is hanging there!”
Only later:
“It’s a sculpture.”
Černý exploits a few seconds of uncertainty.
And it is in them that the work works most strongly.
Interesting History:
- The installation traveled outside Prague and in various places was taken by passersby for a real human in danger;
- The choice of Freud was, according to Černý, related to the question of the future role of the intellectualist at the threshold of the 21st century;[^8]
- In Prague, many people walk under the sculpture and do not notice it at all.
So if you are looking for “Hanging Freud Prague”, remember the simplest instruction:
head up.
Pissing Politicians – The Grotesque of Advising (2004)
Location: Franz Kafka Museum
In the courtyard of the Hergetova Cihelna next to the Franz Kafka Museum stand two naked men.
They are made of bronze.
They are over two meters tall.
And they are urinating into a tank shaped like the Czech Republic.
This is what one of David Černý’s most famous realizations looks like.
The official name of the work is Streams, though many tourists know it simply as Piss, Proudy, Čůrající postavy, or in Polish: Pissing.
It was created in 2004 as an interactive fountain using mechanics, electronics, and a GSM system.[^9]
And here it is worth correcting one thing from the original text:
the story about SMS messages is not exclusively an urban legend.
The official description of the work on David Černý’s website indeed indicates that the fountain’s mechanism was designed so that the streams could “write” texts related to Prague, and the system also included messages sent via telephone.[^9]
This makes the sculpture much more subversive than it seems at first glance.
We do not just have two guys pissing into the Czech Republic.
We have mechanical figures writing with a stream of water on the map of the state.
The Czech Republic as a Urinal?
This is, of course, the most obvious provocation.
But Černý also drew attention to the Czech saying related to “pissing on” someone, in a meaning similar to outsmarting or dominating another person.[^9]
Once again, a linguistic, political, and national game appears.
At the same time, the artist consciously places the work in the long history of art using the motif of urination—from the famous Manneken Pis in Brussels to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain.[^9]
So even the most primitive joke has art history behind it.
Very much in Černý’s style.
Ideal Location
Even better is the place.
A few hundred meters away, crowds photograph Charles Bridge.
Around us are Baroque palaces, Lesser Town, and one of the most romantic fragments of the city.
And here two naked guys are pissing into the Czech Republic.
This is precisely the Prague absurd.
You do not need to ride to the outskirts of the city.
It is located in the very center of the historical decoration.
Interpretations:
- Democracy written… in water: The state becomes a surface of temporary recording that appears and disappears immediately.
- Political grotesque: The map of the country is stripped of national sanctity.
- Metaphor of power: The work can be read as a comment on the way politics treats the state.
- Linguistic game: The Czech idiom related to “pissing on” someone gives the work an additional layer.
- History of art: Černý himself pointed to associations with Manneken Pis and Duchamp’s Fountain.[^9]
And again:
first the person laughs.
Only then do they begin to analyze.
Quo Vadis – The Trabant on a Parade of Freedom (1990)
Location: German Embassy / Musoleum
Trabant.
The car that for a huge part of Central Europe became a symbol of everyday life in real socialism.
Small.
Simple.
Characteristic.
And probably one of the least monumental cars ever produced.
So Černý did a logical thing.
He gave it legs.
Quo Vadis was created in 1990, i.e., directly after the events that changed Central Europe.[^10]
To really understand this sculpture, you need to go back to 1989.
East Germans began to mass-search for a way to the West. One of the key places became the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague. Hundreds, then thousands of GDR citizens tried to get onto the embassy grounds, hoping for the possibility of emigration.
Cars remained around.
Wartburgs.
And above all, Trabants.
Cars of people who no longer wanted to return home in them.
Černý turned this everyday object into a symbol of migration.
The Trabant gets legs.
It no longer needs to drive on the road.
It can leave.
Why “Quo Vadis”?
Latin:
Quo vadis?
means:
Where are you going?
In the case of a car on human legs, the question suddenly sounds very literal.
But in 1990, it had much greater weight.
Where are the Germans going?
Where is Czechoslovakia heading?
Where is Europe heading after the fall of the Iron Curtain?
What will actually happen to the states whose borders, systems, and political certainties have just begun to crumble?
The Trabant is funny.
But the history it carries is not funny.
The Sculpture and the German Embassy
The bronze cast of Quo Vadis is located in the garden of the German Embassy in Prague.[^10]
This place has huge symbolic significance precisely because of the events of 1989.
The sculpture has thus returned, so to speak, to the source of its own history.
It does not stand in a random gallery.
It stands where people really left Trabants, trying to get out of the GDR.
Part of the presentation of David Černý’s work can also be seen today in the Musoleum—his permanent exhibition space arranged in the former distillery in Smíchov.[^11]
Interpretation:
- Symbol of migration and new path: The car gets legs because its owners themselves had to find a path to another world.
- Freedom: The Trabant ceases to be an object assigned to the system and symbolically begins to walk where it wants.
- Historical irony: The most ordinary car of the Eastern Bloc is raised to the rank of a monument.
- Quo vadis? – The question “where are you going?” concerns not only refugees from the GDR, but all of Central Europe in 1989.
- Memory without pathos: Instead of a monument with a hero and a flag, we get a Trabant on legs.
And perhaps it is here that David Černý’s method is best seen.
If one were to tell the story of GDR refugees using a classic monument, a group of people looking toward freedom would likely be created.
A flag.
A face.
Pathos.
Bronze.
Černý leaves only the car.
He adds legs to it.
And suddenly the whole history is inside.
David Černý and Prague – The City That Does Not Fear Its Own Grotesque
When you gather these works together, a certain pattern begins to become visible.
Lilith props up a building.
Trifot looks at passersby.
Miminka climb the tower.
Wenceslas sits on a dead horse.
Freud hangs over the street.
Two men piss into the Czech Republic.
The Trabant walks.
None of these objects behave as they should.
And perhaps that is exactly why they fit Prague so well.
Because Prague itself is a city where history very often stopped behaving according to plan.
Empires disappeared.
States arose.
States collapsed.
Tanks arrived.
Tanks left.
Monuments were erected.
Monuments were blown up.
Street names were changed.
Heroes of one system became a problem for the next.
Černý takes this historical instability and translates it into the language of sculpture.
Nothing is completely motionless.
Nothing is entirely sacred.
Nothing should be accepted without a question.
Unconventional Prague Begins Where the Postcard Ends
You can spend a weekend in Prague and not see almost any of these things.
Charles Bridge.
Lesser Town.
Beer.
Return to the hotel.
It will still be a beautiful trip.
But there is another Prague.
Alternative Prague.
Prague of contemporary art.
Prague of Žižkov and Karlín.
Prague of passages.
Prague of strange sculptures.
Prague, where you need to look not only forward, but also up.
And it is there that David Černý feels best.
Because his art does not need the silence of a gallery.
It needs a person who goes for bread, turns the corner, and suddenly sees Freud hanging over the street.
Then, for a few seconds, the entire city changes its meaning.
And then the person continues on their way.
As if nothing had happened.
A little like Saint Wenceslas on a dead horse.
References
[^1]: David Černý, Lilith, official artist’s website – description of the 2022 installation, its height, material, location at Fragment, and additional elements of the composition: David Černý – Lilith.
[^2]: Prague City Tourism, Lilith statue – source providing height of about 24 meters, mass of about 35 tons, and head rotation of 180 degrees after midnight: Prague City Tourism – Lilith.
[^3]: David Černý, Trifot – official description of the 12-meter interactive sculpture from 2016, equipped with electronics and a passersby tracking system: David Černý – Trifot.
[^4]: Czech Photo Centre, Trifot – description of inspiration from John Wyndham’s “The Day of the Triffids” and the use of cameras and screens: Czech Photo Centre – Trifot.
[^5]: David Černý, Babies – official history of Miminka, their interpretation, locations on Žižkov and Kampa, and author’s comments regarding technology and “angels of destruction”: David Černý – Babies.
[^6]: Prague City Tourism, Socha Miminko (Baby) – information about ten figures on the Žižkov tower, replacement of the structure in 2019, and three bronze Miminka at Kampa: Prague City Tourism – Miminko.
[^7]: David Černý, Saint Wenceslas – official description of the 1999 sculpture in Lucerna Passage and author’s comment regarding the inverted national symbol: David Černý – Saint Wenceslas.
[^8]: David Černý, Man Hanging Out – official description of the Hanging Freud, dating of the work, and author’s statement about the end of the 20th century and the future of the intellectualist: David Černý – Man Hanging Out.
[^9]: David Černý, Streams – official description of the 2004 fountain, GSM mechanism, possibility of “writing” with a water stream, and author’s comment regarding the Czech idiom and references to art history: David Černý – Streams.
[^10]: David Černý, Quo Vadis (Trabant) – official history of the 1990 work, its connection with GDR refugees and the FRG embassy in Prague, and the later bronze cast: David Černý – Quo Vadis.
[^11]: Prague City Tourism, Musoleum – information about the permanent gallery of selected works by David Černý in the former distillery in Smíchov: Prague City Tourism – Musoleum.