Lot 836 D

The Czech artist Zdenek Sýkora used the computer as an artistic aid since the early 1960s: at the very beginning of the virtual age, his friendship with the mathematician Jaroslav Blažek gave him access to one of only two computers in the country. In his initial 'structure pictures', the artist subjected geometrical elements to a strict systematic classification calculated with the help of a computer programme. In the early structure pictures, Sýkora was occupied with the variation of a fixed combination concept, but his 'line pictures' from 1973 were purely focused on the principle of chance/contingency. In these works the lines snake over and under each other, and by moving over the edges of the canvas they create their own ambience and almost their own virtual character. The computer also served as a utensil in the line pictures, fed with number codes, which were allocated with individual colours and curvature angles of the lines. The key difference to the structure pictures lay in the fact that although the artist fixed the framework of conditions, such as the range of lines and colours, the end result was determined exclusively by the computer on the basis of chance. The numerical equations generated by the computer were then transferred by Sykora onto canvas with the help of protractors, compasses and other similar aids. This was a highly concentrated work process, which could take months. Subsequently, every line picture proved to be a new, fascinating discovery, as the complete, objective composition only revealed itself in the final stages of work on the canvas. The analysis of the infinite possibilities of the principle of chance became Sykora's life work, to which he dedicated enormous consistency and inexhaustible inquisitiveness.