Localisation: Czechoslovak Army Square (náměstí Čsl. armády)
The author of the sculptures is Jakub Flejšar. The objects stand by Czechoslovak Army Square. They are made of iron and covered with red lacquer. They have a light, openwork construction. They are not solid forms, but spatial drawings made of metal rods. The rods create the outlines of human figures. It is a little as if someone had drawn a human being in the air with a red line, then stiffened that line and left it in space.
The composition consists of two separate figures, placed about 3 metres apart. One, the larger one, stands on the pavement below the low wall. It is titled “Connection with…”. It is 220 centimetres high, 100 centimetres wide and 50 centimetres deep. The other, smaller one, sits on the wall. It is titled “Chubby”. It is 160 centimetres high, 50 centimetres wide and 50 centimetres deep. Both sculptures are red, openwork and built from a similar arrangement of thin, straight rods.
“Connection with…” is the larger figure, placed lower, by the wall, at pavement level. It represents a seated figure. The body is neither smooth nor realistic. It consists of many straight sections of iron, which join at different angles. From these sections, a head, torso, arms and legs are formed. The figure looks like a spatial mesh or a technical sketch of a human being. It has no face, eyes, mouth or details of clothing. It has only the general arrangement of a body.
The figure sits low, close to the wall. The lower part of the body is broad and elaborate. The legs are bent, set near the ground and built from rectangular, open segments. The torso rises above them as a vertical, irregular construction of rods. The head is simplified. It has the shape of a small, angular solid built from several connected sections. The whole is transparent. Through the figure, everything behind it can be seen.
The second sculpture, “Chubby”, is placed higher, on the stone wall. It is a smaller, also red figure. It sits on the upper edge of the wall, with part of the body resting on the horizontal surface and one part lowered down on the side of the wall. Here, too, the figure is not solid. It is formed by a network of iron rods, which arrange themselves into the outline of a head, torso and limbs.
“Chubby” has a more compact silhouette than the figure on the pavement. Its body is shorter and more densely constructed. The head is placed high, above the torso, and has an irregular, angular shape. The body looks as if it were made of small, open cages. These cages do not create soft anatomy, but a broken, geometric version of a seated figure. The name “Chubby”, meaning “plump” or “rounded”, may work here perversely, because the sculpture is not rounded. It is built from sharp lines, empty spaces and a metal mesh.
Both figures are red. The colour is intense and distinct. Thanks to it, the thin rods stand out clearly against the stone, greenery and urban surroundings. The red also makes the sculptures visible despite their openwork character. The sculptures are not realistic portraits of people. They do not show age, gender, facial expression or clothing. Rather, they show the very arrangement of a figure in space. Both can be read as figures separated from their surroundings, but at the same time strongly connected with them. Because the background can be seen through their bodies. The stone, plants, bench, street and people behind them become part of the image.
The artist’s comment by Jakub Flejšar directs viewers towards issues of Gestalt psychology. According to it, our perception organises the field of vision into figure and ground. The figure is what we focus our attention on. The background is less distinct and recedes. With these sculptures, the question is: does this really happen? The red figures are figures, but they are also full of holes and gaps. The background does not disappear behind them. On the contrary, it enters the inside of their bodies. Therefore, these sculptures can be viewed as a play between presence and emptiness, or as a reference to the tension between the presence of a human being and the space they occupy.