Murals are now in Prague. The crossroads in Žižkov were decorated with murals
The Czech Railways wall is the fifth and so far the last of the completed realizations, for which the city was paid for by the city within the MuralArt UM project, which falls under the Art for the City program.
Street artists with civil names Tomáš Staněk and Josef Sedlák shared their work. One beautified a larger wall along Seifert Street, where thousands of people walk or pass every day, the other focused on the passage to the U-shaped railway.
The dominant feature of the whole mural is the abstracted plan of Prague, interwoven with the scheme of railway lines. Beyond the city limits, the railway continues with signs of a nationwide network, the heart of which is Prague. In the places where the passage is located, the viewer is drawn into the tunnel by painting.
The motifs of Obras and Akrobada are supposed to evoke the experience of a train ride, movement, technique: cables, sparks, flickering colors behind the windows, comic interjections.
Support from the municipality
The City Coalition has been supporting the Arts for the City program of public works since 2018. The large-scale painting project, the so-called murals, is based on a younger initiative leading to the creation of temporary street installations and interventions.
According to Culture Councilor Hana Třeštíková (Prague herself), creating mural has several benefits. They cultivate neglected spaces, send stimuli to the general public to think, and fill the open spaces of high-quality artificial availability of doodles. At the same time, they give creators work in uncertain times.
More than a hundred proposals applied for the first call. Eight of them, selected by expert commissions, shared two million crowns from the city coffers.
According to Magdalena Juříková, director of the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague, who is the guarantor of the project, some of the successful designs came from lesser-known artists. “Murals become a great mediator of communication between the artistic and local community, especially when artists are based on the genius loci, history and current needs of such a place. The interpretation led in this direction then becomes an added value and the work does not remain only a decoration, “says Juříková.
Wall painting at Vychovatelna
Before the mural in Seifertova Street, large-scale paintings were completed in Nové Butovice, Bořislavka, Vychovatelna and Spořilov. In cooperation with the Transport Company, the creation of a mural at the Vltavská station can also be permitted in Prague 7. As part of the first call for the city project, paintings will also be made in Žižkov, Hostivař and Opatov.