texts about zs

New Art in Bohemia

If Boštík makes his visions of nature predominantly lyrical, John and Ouhel balladic, then Zdeněk Sýkora´s are hymnic. It may seem absurd to write about him as a landscape-painter – after all, Sýkora is the representative of the extremely abstract. In fact, he takes this to the point of leaving the decision-making about his painting to a computer…

This is an extremely complicated work method, but a Czech painter who is not driven by any instigations from without, can afford to apply it. He devoted a year of six hours daily to one of the large canvases (300 by 300 cm). The result is astonishing – looking at the monumental colourful constructions Sýkora created, nobody would have guessed how they originated. Again these are rampant, blossoming landscapes or they might just as well be swirling biological primal shapes as seen through a microscope. In Josef Hlaváček´s words, Sýkora´s structures are homological with the world of his experience. The painting grew in the same way as organic nature originates, from absolute chance, developing under the conditions of a strict order.  

Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, 1986

New Art in Bohemia

Part of the text
In Nové umění v Čechách (New Art in Bohemia), Nakladatelství H+H, Prague 1994
Author: Jindřich Chalupecký, 1988
Topic: work