Localisation: Areál Vodárenské věže, Mánesova street.
“Beetles” is a pair of large sculptures placed on the lawn in the grounds of the water tower on Mánesova Street. The objects represent two oversized insects. They are not a realistic entomological model, but no one should have any doubts: we are dealing with the titular beetles. And the kind that have clearly eaten a good lunch, grown, are stepping across the grass and fancy being an outdoor attraction for a while. The sculptures are made of concrete and ceramic. Concrete builds the main, massive solids of the bodies. Ceramic creates the colourful, round elements on the surface. The metal legs complete the whole.
Each beetle has a low, broad body about one and a half metres long. It is taller than a natural insect, but still stays close to the ground. The largest part of the object is formed by a convex, oval abdomen. It has the form of a high dome, rounded on all sides. It resembles a shell, a carapace or a very large ceramic bun with dots. In front of the abdomen, there is a smaller, rounded head, also strongly convex.
The beetles stand on six black legs each. The legs are long, thin and bent at an angle. They emerge from beneath the carapace and hold the body above the ground. They are not massive; rather, they resemble black, bent rods. Their ends touch the ground at points, so the whole animal looks as if it could move on at any moment. Fortunately for the public, it does not.
The bodies of the beetles are light, creamy white and covered with hundreds of small, round ceramic elements. These elements look like flat buttons, bottle caps or small mosaic tiles. They are arranged very densely, in regular rows. Thanks to them, the surface is not smooth, but rhythmic and finely dotted. From close up, individual circles are visible; from a distance, they arrange themselves into stripes and patterns on the carapace.
Vertical stripes dominate the abdomens of both beetles. They run from front to back, along the long axis of the body. Some of the stripes are white, some dark green. The green circles form clear, parallel lines separated by lighter bands. In the upper part of one of the beetles there is an additional triangular pattern made of dark green dots. It looks like a sign inscribed into the centre of the carapace, but it does not break the insect form – rather, it organises it. The carapace has a clear division into the head and the larger part of the body. Between them runs a light, smooth band. This place acts as a boundary between the front and rear parts of the insect. The abdomen is more uniform and dome-like. The head is lower, shorter and more distinctly “face-like”, if one can say that about a beetle made of concrete and ceramic.
The beetles’ heads are more colourful. They are covered with dark green and white circles, densely arranged on the rounded surface. On the sides of the head there are red, convex fields. These are beetle eyes. They are large, intense and immediately attract attention. Thanks to them, the beetles have a slightly comic expression: they are partly looking, partly pretending to look, and partly seem as if they themselves were surprised by their own scale.
The two objects, therefore, look like members of the same species, but not like identical copies. Each has its own arrangement of dots, its own rhythm of stripes and its own character. Instead of beetles that we would immediately flick off the sleeve of a coat, we have insects beside which one can stop, walk around them and calmly check, with sight or touch, how many ceramic dots make up their carapaces.