David Cerny: Portrait of an Artist as a Young Provocateur

He started out his career by painting a tank pink. In 1991, David Cerny was an art student in Prague. For years he had walked by the Soviet tank mounted on a pedestal in Kinsky Square and fumed. The tank commemorated the Soviet liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, and indeed the square was once known as the Square of Soviet Tank Crews. But the tank also reminded the citizens of Prague of the Soviet tanks that entered the city in 1968 to put down the Prague Spring. So, one night in the spring of...