The Principle of an Electric Motor (final model for the set of kinetic light sculptures One Hundred Years of Electricity for Zenger Transformer Station in Prague)

Zdeněk Pešánek did a set of four light kinetic sculptures as a commission from the Electric Utility Company of Prague. Their theme, in line with the purpose of the building, comprised principles crucial in the development of electrical engineering and an illustration of the rising output of the Prague Electric Utility Company. They also represented a tribute to the 19th-century physicists and inventors in this field whose progress created the technical basis for Pešánek’s pioneering concept of kinetic art. The resulting models suggest a compositional solution of organic forms and technological elements, a variety of materials and an assemblage form. For the sculptures he displayed in the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris in 1937, Pešánek mostly used industrial materials and artificial resin in combination with a changing play of lights produced by a system of colour bulbs and neon tubes. Nevertheless, these sculptures, which were awarded a Gold Medal for their outstanding synthesis of art and technology, have not survived. Nor were they ever installed in the transformer station.