At Národní trída, the construction of the Quadrio shopping center was completed in 2014. Alongside the commercial complex, a new public space was built, which includes the silver head of Franz Kafka (
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The head of Franz Kafka consists of 42 layers and is made of 24 tons of stainless steel plates, with a total weight of 39 tons. Its mobility is ensured by motor modules connected by a kilometer of cables. All layers of the sculpture can rotate independently of each other.
"Born and raised in former Czechoslovakia, David Cerný knows better than anyone what oppression means. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, a radical metamorphosis took also place in his birthplace Prague where he still lives. Cerný himself says he is not a political animal, yet his artwork, unvarnished and confrontational, has everything to do with the truth of the day. Even his older works are more current than ever and clearly show that although time changes, the human brain does not.
Cerný masters the art of balancing controversy and humor like no other. He first gained notoriety in 1991 when he painted a Soviet tank pink as a memorial to war in his native Prague. Since then his artistic acts of civil disobedience, grand scale installations, and exhibitions have continued to incite strong reactions worldwide."
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"Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the short story "The Metamorphosis" and novels The Trial and The Castle. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe situations like those found in his writing.
Kafka was born into a middle-class German-speaking Czech Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the capital of the Czech Republic. He trained as a lawyer and after completing his legal education was employed full-time by an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time.
He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis. His work has influenced a vast range of writers, critics, artists, and philosophers during the 20th and 21st centuries."
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