Day 18, Part 1: Kampa

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 

We'd passed by the Kampa museum of modern art on our previous trip across the river. Today, we actually went inside. 

The building itself is probably only five or six times the size of my house, but they have managed to fit an amazing amount of artwork into it. There are paintings and sculptures everywhere from the front desk to the stairwell. 

I didn't always like the stairwell placement - there were a few paintings that really needed more room, or less glare from the sun - but it was the perfect place for some of the glass pieces and hanging sculptures, especially this one. 

There was a huge, egg-shaped wire sculpture hanging near the middle of one of the large galleries. I walked around it for a long time, finding shapes and compositions and tiny landscapes in the intricate twistings of the wire. A photograph can't really do it justice at all. 

Two photographs, however, can come a bit closer. Those of you who keep your stereopticans within easy reach of your computers can whip them out now and take a look at these photographs, taken a few inches apart to mimic the placement of human eyes. 

It's still not as good as walking around the sculpture, but it will at least let you see it in three dimensions from a few angles. 


There was representational art in the museum as well, but most of it was of the ugly-and-disturbing variety of modern art, which doesn't always interest me as much. I can appreciate what this kind of art says, but I don't usually want to look at it for long. Most of my favorite pieces in the museum were abstract. 

The highlight of the museum, by far, was the work of František Kupka. This was spread across two dim, quiet galleries, one on top of the other, with a narrow spiral staircase in between. Most of the paintings on display were studies for larger paintings; he was, apparently, rather prolific around 1918. They were amazing - whorls and spirals and jags and intersecting planes of color, with all the vivid fractal grace of a butterfly's wing. 

Photographs, unfortunately, were forbidden in that particular gallery. 

Outside one of the upstairs galleries was a balcony covered with mirrored blue glass. 

From the end, you can see the city past the river and the giant chair. 

There's also a good view from the tower at the top of the staircase. 

The courtyard below is full of the larger and more weatherproof sculptures. 

The one above was called "Victims." Each statue in the set was damaged in some way. The only one with an undamaged body was the one on the right - which had a series of small, deep holes in its head instead. 

The courtyard also has the occasional plant. I found myself wandering through a series of tall, upright pieces by various artists until I came to the last one, a gorgeous, twisted piece of sculpture covered with whorls and ridges and a mottled series of colors that must have taken years to apply… 

And then I realized that I was looking at the trunk of a plane tree. 

I love art, but in many ways, humans still have a long way to go before we can compete with nature.