Zdeněk Sýkora
Squared Texture / Texture - Squares
Artist
Zdeněk Sýkora
(1920, Louny - 2011, Louny), Czech
Original Title
Squared Texture / Texture - Squares
Date1963
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions135,5 × 99,5 cm
Classificationspaintings
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionZdeněk Sýkora was a Czech abstract painter. In 1964, he became one of the first artists ever to use a computer for the creation of his constructivist canvases. His work based on the principle of controlled chance has been interpreted as analogous to the functioning of natural organisms. Throughout his whole life, Sýkora drew inspiration from scientific discoveries, yet despite the incorporation of many rational concepts, his work remains highly organic and spontaneous. In his earliest works, Sýkora focused on realistic depictions of landscapes, which slowly crystallized into planar, organic, visually neat compositions. In the early 1960s, his practice shifted toward instinctual experiments with geometric structure and dividing the painting’s surface into a geometric grid, which is further subdivided into smaller areas in shades of black, white, and gray—these works are known as Gray Structures).
Square Structure / Structure – Squares (1963) is a canvas covered with an irregular pattern of black and white geometric shapes arranged into a structure, developing the approach Sýkora previously implemented in the Gray Structures. The creative process is based on the possible variables of composing individual elements and on a departure from subjective artistic projection toward an objectivized process. The resultant appearance of the painting is based on a thorough exploration of the interrelations between chance, systematicness, and the combinatorial possibilities of basic geometric components. Created in 1963, this work briefly predates Sýkora’s structures created using a computer program created in collaboration with mathematician Jaroslav Blažek, which provided Sýkora with innumerable amounts of potential compositional variations. The use of artificial intelligence presented Sýkora with new opportunities to examine the features and combinatorics of basic artistic devices such as color and shape through predefined rules. Due to the context of its creation, Square Structure / Structure – Squares is marked by an intuitive search for yet unrepeated possibilities and positions, which would soon become a task for rational technological logic.
Zdeněk Sýkora (1920, Louny – 2011, Louny) initially studied at the Faculty of Architecture and Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague, and later at the Faculty of Education at the Charles University in Prague under Martin Salcman, Karel Lidický, and Cyril Bouda. In the early 1960s, his practice shifted from classical landscape painting to abstract geometric structures. During the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, Sýkora was banned from exhibiting; in the late 1960s, he created several artworks placed in the urban environment. From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the art group Křížovatka which connected artists following novel objectivist tendencies. After 1965, he partook in several exhibitions abroad, including the so-called New Tendencies exhibitions in Zagreb. Between 1972 and 1973, Sýkora abandoned his system of geometric structures, and, through paintings of macrostructures created by enlarging semicircular elements, developed a new visual system rid of the grid structure. The resultant canvases are based on the random movement of lines, randomly determined by a computer in a process which can be termed the “principle of controlled chance”. The colored lines move across a white background with their thickness, shape, color, and initial coordinates determined randomly by a throw of a die or by computer-generated numbers which define the parameters of the meticulous, pencil-based preparatory process of translating the determined paths of each line onto a canvas. From 1985, Sýkora began collaborating with his wife Lenka on the creation of his paintings. His first retrospective exhibition was held at the Josef-Albers-Museum in Bottrop, Germany; in 1995 and 2010, retrospectives of his work were hosted by the Prague City Gallery at the Municipal Library. Sýkora continued creating art up until his death in 2011. He is also the author of several architectural projects, for instance the visual design of the foyer of the Selmoni AG in Basel and of the paintings decorating the foyer of the National Integrated Air Traffic Control Center building in Jeneč u Prahy.
Square Structure / Structure – Squares (1963) is a canvas covered with an irregular pattern of black and white geometric shapes arranged into a structure, developing the approach Sýkora previously implemented in the Gray Structures. The creative process is based on the possible variables of composing individual elements and on a departure from subjective artistic projection toward an objectivized process. The resultant appearance of the painting is based on a thorough exploration of the interrelations between chance, systematicness, and the combinatorial possibilities of basic geometric components. Created in 1963, this work briefly predates Sýkora’s structures created using a computer program created in collaboration with mathematician Jaroslav Blažek, which provided Sýkora with innumerable amounts of potential compositional variations. The use of artificial intelligence presented Sýkora with new opportunities to examine the features and combinatorics of basic artistic devices such as color and shape through predefined rules. Due to the context of its creation, Square Structure / Structure – Squares is marked by an intuitive search for yet unrepeated possibilities and positions, which would soon become a task for rational technological logic.
Zdeněk Sýkora (1920, Louny – 2011, Louny) initially studied at the Faculty of Architecture and Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague, and later at the Faculty of Education at the Charles University in Prague under Martin Salcman, Karel Lidický, and Cyril Bouda. In the early 1960s, his practice shifted from classical landscape painting to abstract geometric structures. During the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, Sýkora was banned from exhibiting; in the late 1960s, he created several artworks placed in the urban environment. From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the art group Křížovatka which connected artists following novel objectivist tendencies. After 1965, he partook in several exhibitions abroad, including the so-called New Tendencies exhibitions in Zagreb. Between 1972 and 1973, Sýkora abandoned his system of geometric structures, and, through paintings of macrostructures created by enlarging semicircular elements, developed a new visual system rid of the grid structure. The resultant canvases are based on the random movement of lines, randomly determined by a computer in a process which can be termed the “principle of controlled chance”. The colored lines move across a white background with their thickness, shape, color, and initial coordinates determined randomly by a throw of a die or by computer-generated numbers which define the parameters of the meticulous, pencil-based preparatory process of translating the determined paths of each line onto a canvas. From 1985, Sýkora began collaborating with his wife Lenka on the creation of his paintings. His first retrospective exhibition was held at the Josef-Albers-Museum in Bottrop, Germany; in 1995 and 2010, retrospectives of his work were hosted by the Prague City Gallery at the Municipal Library. Sýkora continued creating art up until his death in 2011. He is also the author of several architectural projects, for instance the visual design of the foyer of the Selmoni AG in Basel and of the paintings decorating the foyer of the National Integrated Air Traffic Control Center building in Jeneč u Prahy.
