Anti-charter was a challenge for artists to say No to the regime. None did it.
David Němec was born on May 29, 1961, in Prague as the fifth of seven children of psychologists Dana and Jiří Němec. His parents signed Charter 77 and lost their jobs. They were active in the dissent and their flat in Ječná street was permanently open to people from the underground and dissent for discussions, lectures and concerts. They co-founded the Committee for the Protection of Unjustly Persecuted (VONS). David Němec signed Charter 77 in 1979, after his parents were arrested and imprisoned and he turned eighteen. He was a member of the underground music group DG 307. He trained as a girdler, in 1982 passed the ‘maturity’ exam at evening school and sat at the entrance exams to the Academy of Arts in Prague, where he was not accepted. In 1983 to 1995 he worked as a boiler operator and since 1995 as a computer graphic artists. In 1997–1998 he co-created a program for dyslectic children and since 1998 he has worked as a graphic designer at Respekt weekly. Since mid 1970s to the end of the 1980s he had solo and group exhibitions, all private. His first exhibition open to general public was in 1989 in the Prague Junior club Na Chmelnici. Since 1989 he has exhibited both in the Czech Republic and abroad. He belongs among the artists of the so-called second generation of the Czech underground. He married The Plastic People of the Universe singer Michaela Pohanková. He lives in Prague, with five children.
