The Prague project was a personal initiative, based on a story Nadim created of an encounter between Kafka and Kandinsky on the Charles Bridge. During the spring of 1997, seventeen sculptures were placed along the Manes Bridge in central Prague, in dialogue with the baroque sculptures of the historic Charles Bridge opposite. Three sculptures were put on the hill near Prague Castle, and one (the Elephant) went down to the banks of the Vltava River. The project took three years to obtain approval from Czech authorities, but once installed, was prolonged for the summer.

The Story:

“…Kafka had asked Kandinsky to meet him on Manes Bridge, but when he arrived, he found that the bridge did not exist. It was built a few years later.

It was dusk by the time they met, while walking across the Charles Bridge. There are reports
that they were not alone, that twenty-two shadow creatures appeared amongst the baroque statues, the whimsy of their silhouettes somehow similar to the Himmelblau creatures that Kandinsky was later to produce.

The shadow creatures disappeared when the two men reached the shore. Perhaps they were just a visual collision of empathy.