Abstract
The article is an output from a conference that, on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the founding of the art association Concretists Club, tried to reflect the current meaning and efforts of concrete art. The starting point here is a recapitulation of the historical reason for the establishment of concrete art in Czech art (rejection of surrealist narrative, expressionistic accentuation of emotions and impressionistic or realistic search for sensual impulses in creation) and a reminder of its content, which was represented by works based on highly autonomous, even experimental work with creative means.
Such creation opened new spaces for aesthetic perception and restored the flexibility of the human mind. Rational considerations of shapes and colors, compositional alternatives and open processes, changeability and mobility of works of art became the basis; artists also often experimented with hitherto unused materials and production methods.
In the 1960s, concretism coincided with minimalism, which, through a radical reduction of forms, initiated the belief that the idea of a work is everything and its final realization is only a possible consequence. This "conceptualization" of art resonated with the practices of concretism.
In the last two decades, concretism overlaps with the concept of computer generativity as a new artistic approach.