Sigmund Freud

On being sighted for the first time, especially by people who are not well acquainted with the area, the likes of police and firefighters are often mistakenly called into the scene to rescue the hanging man. The hanging man is actually a seven feet tall statue molded out of bronze colored fiberglass. Holding on to a pole with just one arm and swinging off a full three stories off the ground, it is no wonder that people panic on sighting this sculpture.

This ingenious work of art was created by the famous David Cerny, whose art pieces are scattered all over the city of Prague. Created in the year 1997, David Cerny declared the statue to be a depiction of Sigmund Freud, the Czech psychoanalyst who shook the global perspective on many aspects with his theories. Freud suffered from many phobias in his lifetime and one of the most iconic of these was the fear of his own death. Later, Freud died whilst suffering from cancer from a self-made choice of morphine overdose. 

Many interpret that Cerny was trying to depict with the choice of life and death, whether Freud should have actually let go and have died or not. Others wonder if the artist created with work to challenge the status quo in itself. Whether its meaning became eminent or not, Sigmund Freud’s statue became extremely popular, and on being cited as one of Prague’s historical sights, was displayed in many big cities all around the world including London, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Chicago.

The delightful thing about this hanging statue of Freud is the location of the art. Situated near the Old Town Square in the neighborhood of Stare Mesto, the place is just another narrow street surrounded by vintage houses and cobbled streets like any other pretty place in Europe. But as you walk on, you suddenly find a dark silhouette of a man hanging from a pole against the sky. This is the reason why the police must have received so many pleas for help. However, if you know what to expect, then you’ll have a fine time observing an icon of Sigmund Freud still hanging from the pole, wondering if he should let go or not.

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