Controversial Czech artist David Černý isn't afraid of pissing people
off. He jumpstarted his anti-government notoriety in 1991 by painting a
Soviet tank in a Prague war memorial pink. The act scandalized Czech
society.
Not to be tamed, Černý followed up his insertion into the public
conscious with large-scale sculptures of, for example, two massive,
naked backsides. Černý almost always encourages his viewers to interact
with the art, and, in this piece, the observer can climb a ladder and
stick his or her head inside the sculpture's pristine, white buttholes.
Another famous Černý sculpture is of two men urinating famous sayings
from Prague residents into a small pond. Viewers can interact with this
piece by texting their own messages for the sculpture to memorialize in a
uniquely special way.
In comparison with his other works, Metalmorphosis, a mirrored
sculpture housed in the Whitehall Technology Park in Charlotte, North
Carolina, is tame and seemingly apolitical. The creation consists of
nearly 40 steel pieces grouped into 7 segments which independently
rotate 360 degrees, and the mouth spits water into a huge pool in which
it sits. When the segments are aligned, the sculpture appears to be a
giant, silver head complete with the usual fixtures in their regular
places.
When the motorized, internet-controlled segments are rotating, the
result is an oddly mesmerizing perpetually moving showpiece which
alternately looks like a human head – with disturbing, gaping holes
where the mouth or eyes should be – or, alternately, like nothing
replicated in the physical world. The reflecting pool beneath the
sculpture creates an even more muddled reflection.
Perhaps drawing on the quickly-shifting and revolving literary
universe of fellow Czech artist, Franz Kafka, Černý notes the
Metalmorphosis as something of a self-portrait of his own psyche. Maybe.
Part of Černý's rebellious artistic temperament includes creating a
falsified biography of himself for the media. Whether or not it's
absolutely true, regarding the piece, Černý said, "This is how I feel;
it is a mental self-portrait.”
Appropriate for a technology park and perhaps a dig at the constant
surveillance of modern culture, you can watch the head rotate – all day,
every day – on a webcam constantly pinned on it.
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