Butterfly Effect

BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Which war machine is the most beautiful symbol of the freedom struggle? For me, the Spitfire plane has been an icon of victory over evil since childhood. Although I grew up in an artistic family, I devoured Sky Riders more than paintings, as a small boy I spent my days at the airport in Letňany, crawling through the Kbela Aviation Museum and building models of Spitfires. This plane made me want to become a fighter pilot. The most elegant airplane in history, which elegantly shot down even Hitler himself to the dustbin of history.

A small fighter with a skillful pilot can ignite the fire of a battle that will eventually sweep away even a large aggressor. The butterfly effect is a theory that states that the flapping of a wing can trigger a chain of events that will cause a hurricane on the opposite side of the planet.

A few years ago, the ambassador of the Czech Republic to NATO, Jakub Landovský, suggested that I create a work for the alliance's new headquarters. It offered to respond to the anniversary of our accession to NATO, thanks to which we are today an independent, independent country not occupied by Russia. I accepted the offer with the condition that the project would not be paid for from the state budget.

For me, the most significant example of our country's entry into an alliance fighting against dictators trying to dominate the world is the participation of Czechoslovak fighter pilots in the defense of England on the wings of the RAF. I consider them to be one of the greatest heroes of the Czechoslovak state. Ironically, many of them who survived this crucial battle were subsequently persecuted, tortured and executed in their homeland by the criminal dictatorship of the communist regime. The redress of this wrong began only after 1989, and Václav Havel had great credit for it.

Based on the aforementioned, I created a design for the Butterfly Effect sculptural work. Spitfire, reminiscent of a fighting mythical creature spewing fire and warding off evil, contrasts with the defenseless beauty, lightness and fragility of butterfly wings. Symbolically, the opposites of gentle elegance and firm determination to defend themselves, if necessary, are thus united.

The project was accepted and supported by the NATO leadership and a number of well-known personalities, such as Karel Schwarzenberg, General Petr Pavel or Sir Stuart Peach. What remained to be decided was how to finance the work to the NATO headquarters.

At the same time, coincidentally, I was approached by Amadeus if I wanted to participate in an internal competition to install a work of art on the renovated Máj department store on Národní trida. At that moment, it occurred to me that the two projects are symbolically and ideologically connected, and I suggested installing the same work on the sticks of the Brutalist walls as in the NATO headquarters.

The location of the work is already symbolic. Thirty years ago, we, students at the time, received a loading dock from the communist police on Národní třída. From the same communists who liquidated the Czechoslovak heroes of the RAF. And I was also inspired by May, as a symbol of the end of the Second World War and the beginning of spring.

I proposed to Amadeus that I would waive the royalties for my work if they would fund the challenging development of the butterfly prototype for Brussels, and they accepted my offer. In the end, a sponsor was also found for the actual production of the butterfly for placement in NATO.

The cast fuselage of a Spitfire aircraft, whose elliptical wing I replaced with a butterfly, refers not only to some of my previous sculptures, but also to Surrealism, Dadaism and other artistic movements. The principle of organic connection of seemingly unconnected parts of animal or human bodies with technical components has been appearing in visual arts for centuries. An example can be the depiction of Egyptian sphinxes or Babylonian winged deities, the work of Hieronymus Bosch, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Jan Švankmajer or H.R. Gieger. I chose the color of the fuselage in the contours of the original camouflage, but the colors are deliberately closer to the color of the butterfly than to the war camouflage. The shape of the wings is inspired by Monarch butterflies. A butterfly, sitting and resting, gracefully moves its wings.

There is already one monument to Czechoslovak airmen in Prague. My Spitfires are not another monument, but rather a free work of art, an installation that I pay tribute to Czechoslovak pilots in fighters of the British Royal Air Force. This part of our history should be remembered again and continue to resonate in our art, similar to when in the nineties Jan Svěrák made the film Dark Blue World as a celebration of the RAF. I am happy to join Honzo today. Aviators are symbolized by 359 airplane silhouettes in the paving of the sidewalk on Národní třída under the Spitfajry. It will be a great honor for me if this sidewalk becomes the "Walk of Fame" of these knights of heaven.

Yes, the Supermarine Spitfire is a beautiful and elegant yet deadly war machine. As has recently been shown again, crazy war dictators have not disappeared and it is still necessary to be able to defend against them. Sometimes the butterfly effect of functional diplomacy is sufficient for defense, but at other times a fighter with a fearless pilot behind the stick, ready to repel the aggressor with firepower, is necessary.