Prague once had a “John Lennon” wall, now it has a “Pavlo Šťastný” wall, or Legend as an ideological and commercial business. Cultural monitor of Jan Paul
28/10/2022
Photo: Jan Paul (as well as other images in the article, unless otherwise noted)
Description: Chaos on the wall at Velkopřevo Square
The world is amazed, Czech artists are said to have brought Lennon’s wall from Prague’s Kampa to Paris, but unlike the real one, it is inflatable, it was exhibited one day in front of the Pantheon, then folded, and taken back again. He will continue to travel around European countries, the authors let themselves be heard. Are you asking why? After all, we preside over the European Union, so the organizers used the awareness of the Lennon Wall as a PR banner, which they provided with new, current paintings. The wall is said to symbolize division, but their new one is called the Wall of Freedom and Energy.
What about the fact that as such it is not to blame and it is only a matter of what goals I serve? John Lennon would have wept over the feeble-mindedness of this cultural-political agitation.
“Lennon’s Wall” as a commercial brand
You guessed correctly that the inflatable “Lennon’s Wall” is not Lennon’s wall at all, and the Lennon’s wall is not what 27 authors from the countries of the European Union with guests from Ukraine and Norway painted on the wall of Velkopřevo Square in Prague in September of this year. “We deliberately chose the theme of freedom and energy, because this wall is about freedom, it is our symbol of freedom, peace, love,” said the author and curator of the project, Pavel Šťastný. “We came up with the theme even before the war and before the energy crisis, so for us free artistic expression is that suddenly everyone works together and at the same time releases their artistic energy,” added Šťastný.
John Lennon as an EU citizen
Similar self-serving ideological concepts and events were organized before 1989 by the standardization Union of Czechoslovak Visual Artists, who tried to graft some idea onto an ideological basis. Who would have thought that the energy an artist must put into a work would eventually become part of the work’s title? What freedom can be seen in the painting on the wall of Velkopřevo Square, when 27 artists were just fulfilling a predetermined theme? Everything can be hacked, but nothing remains of the original pre-November Lennon wall. The political establishment and PR executives have appropriated an idea that was never theirs and continue to prey on the former glory of the original Lennon Wall.
The organizer of the repainting, designer and typographer Pavel Šťastný, seized a great business opportunity and supervised the repainting of the wall in 2019 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Before 1989, alongside the Šťastný gallery Nová síň, which belonged to the former Union of Czechoslovak Visual Artists, after 1989 he was co-owner and creative director of the advertising agency ANY, and at the same time art director at Young & Rubicam. Since 2002, he has worked at the Post Production House company, which specialized in television advertising. He created presentation expositions of the Czech Republic at fairs all over the world for the Czech Central Tourism Office, and works as a curator of exhibitions and fashion shows. He is the owner of the design and realization company Plechárna. No wonder they’re trying to make the most of the name “Lennon’s Wall”.
The ideology did not end in 1989
Some details complete the ideological staffing of the wall on Velkopřevorské náměstí, which was printed on an inflatable object and is to be distributed around European cities. For example, a large mirror in the middle of the wall, and around it a blue circle with painted stars as symbols from the EU flag. Point? Everyone can see themselves as an EU citizen in it! Well, tell yourself, isn’t that a brilliant creative idea? While a mirror is placed on the real wall, there is a gaping hole in the inflatable replica. “You can walk through that wall, there and back. It’s actually about the fact that it doesn’t divide us, but unites us”, said marketing guru Pavel Šťastný.
The organizer of the event mentions the symbolism of love and peace, which is said to be a wall, but the reality is different. No peace movement, of which John Lennon himself was once a leading figure in the US war against Vietnam, took off, on the contrary. Weapons continue to flow from EU countries to Ukraine. Such candy-candle lies, parasitizing the former glory of Lennon’s wall, are just empty words that John Lennon would have laughed at. The reason why the inflatable version of the current wall on Velkopřevorské náměstí is said to be traveling is also laughable: “Many people tell us that they have heard of Lennon’s wall, but have never visited Prague, for example. They know it from photographs, but they don’t have a personal experience. That’s why we export this symbol of freedom and show it abroad,” said Šťastný. Ideology is always false. Everyone knows that the original pre-November Lennon wall is long gone and therefore cannot be exported in any form. If people know the original Lennon Wall from photographs, they know something completely different than what will be brought to them.
Lennon’s Wall, 1983. Photo David Sedlecký – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27714839
The original purpose of the Lennon Wall has disappeared
Šťastný let it be known that she is single and may be repainted again after this event. That is really generous, but I am afraid that it will be repainted again in an organized manner with his assistance, which negates the original meaning of this space. The former Lennon Wall was Lennon’s Wall precisely because it carried within it the interference memory of the original ideal and meaning, for which the tradition of its painting by anonymous authors arose. At the very beginning of its existence, it was the spontaneous expression of an empathetic relationship to the ideals of freedom by unknown and unacceptable individuals for Husák’s regime, at the end of it the vulgarity and senselessness of tourists, for which travel agencies provided markers and sprays for this purpose. After November 1989, Lennon’s wall became a place of tourist consumerism, and paradoxically, a victim of that much-sought-after freedom.
Lennon’s wall in 1993. Photo by Information of New Orleans, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1856631
The owner of the wall, the Order of the Knights of Malta, ran out of patience in 2019, and in an attempt to prevent vandalism, decided on a radical solution. He had it renovated at his own expense, and operates it under the supervision of cameras and guards as a public gallery in the hope that the site will return to its original meaning. The problem is that the transformation of the wall into an official space for coordinated painting destroyed its original meaning, which made spontaneous memories and respects for the values that represented the former personality of the Beatles. Although the wall gained the official status of a gallery in public space, it lost its former significance. Lennon’s wall has become institutionalized and thus gone for good.
There is no Lennon, only a business with the name John Lennon
The concept of the owner of the wall is that selected artists from a number of interested parties always change the paintings after some time. The Order of the Maltese Knights, in agreement with Prague 1, provided a newly repaired wall for the artistic rendition of the speech by the group around Pavel Šťastný, because he had already realized a similar concept in the past, and was interested in participating in the November rendition of the wall in 2019. A group of artists from various countries of the world created a diverse mixture of paintings under his leadership, dominated by the portrait of John Lennon, however, the genius loci of the former Lennon Wall as a space for spontaneous expression is lost by organized painting. The Order of the Maltese Knights may not even know that theirs has become a profitable marketing item for a business with John Lennon’s name on it. Everything can be monetized, you just need to know how. And if some ideological agitation sauce is added to it, it goes by itself.
Photo best time
“The wall will be an open-air gallery. It’s the same as if we hung a picture on the wall and someone took a spray can and sprayed it,” said Prague 1 Deputy Mayor Petr Hejma at the time. Prague 1 has decided that there will be information signs near the wall with a description of the history as information for tourists on how they should behave on the spot. Thirty-three years after the Velvet Revolution, the state’s efforts to organize the lives of citizens are a lingering paradox of an era that has irretrievably disappeared. On November 17, 2019, on the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Pavel Šťastný proudly declared to the media: “We created the first painting in modern history on the new wall”, and added: “It turned out to have hundreds of layers, just like the tree rings.” Hundreds of artists painted on it, it is actually the history of freedom”. It was freedom history as the last remnants of the former Lennon Wall ended up as trash in a dumpster.
What to say in conclusion?
The former leader of the Beatles, John Lennon, not only embodied the ideals of love and peace, but also symbolized something that is not very applicable today, namely opposition to the authoritative restriction of creative freedom by official power, whether state or private. And it was this idea that created the character of the famous wall on Prague’s Kampa from the beginning of the eighties of the last century. That was its real meaning and significance. Lennon’s wall was a place of reverence, regardless of the fact that it also attracted those who saw in it only an opportunity to publicly relieve emotions. But Lennon’s wall is no longer what it once was, all that remains is a name with which it is shamelessly traded. Stealing ideas and devaluing the original with ideological content in order to gain propagandistic topicality is as old as humanity itself. If the original place does not carry its spiritual content, what corpus will remain for it, if it is no longer what it originally represented? Commercial interests and establishment erase the traces of human memory, and I give them meanings as it suits him. Prague once had a “John Lennon” wall, now it has a “Pavlo Šťastný” wall.
Business cards of those who could paint on the wall.
French artist Annaëlle Bouardová, who took part in the unveiling of an inflatable copy in Paris, is also set on the painting of the wall on Velkoprévorský náměstí. “I painted a big red circle that will attract attention. I wanted to know love, cohesion and at the same time diversity. The picture shows people of different sexual orientations, genders and ages. I hope there’s a tenderness in it all.” What’s more, activism can find any niche and the name John Lennon is very marketable. The Czech ambassador in the city, Michel Fleischmann, who is mostly in France, is also involved in the entire project, who said: “Of course, walls always divide. The advantage of this wall is that it is inflatable. That means we’re going to blow it up because all the walls are supposed to disappear so they don’t divide.” Um, and I thought the normalization nonsense was a thing of the past. Well, friends with a taste for demolition, surely you too know about a wall!
Posted by: John Paul