Milan Grygar

Milan Grygar was born in Zvolen, Slovakia in 1926. After graduating from the College of Applied Arts, Prague (where he studied under Professor Emil Filla) he concentrated on still lifes which evolved into colour compositions devoid of subject matter. In 1964 the artist produced a series of 64 black-and-white drawings on the principle of a linear sequence. Working in a fast rhythm, the artist could "hear" the drawing he was creating. From there, it was only a step to a discovery that was to define his future artistic career and bring him renown. Grygar made a tape of a precise acoustic recording of the drawing's origin. In 1965, the artist started to pursue the relationship between drawing and sound, and in 1966 exhibited his first acoustic drawings with accompanying tape recordings. These New Drawings led him to the direction known as the New Music, and were followed by large drawings and paintings recording hand movements. The next stage concerned mechanic-acoustic drawings in which the artist employed resounding mechanisms as drawing tools. A new comprehensive series entitled Ground-plan Scores started to take shape in 1967. In the series, drawings are composed as projections of "spread" sounds. In 1970, Grygar held a performance called Audiovisual Relations in the Ales Hall, Prague, in the course of which he executed an acoustic drawing as well as a unique haptic drawing, which the artist entered as a material being producing a drawing with his fingers, without the supervision of sight.

Similar performances took place in Brno (1968; 1973, including Homage to Magic), Lodz (1974), Prague (1985), and at a festival in Ghent (1986). The artist renders all his drawings and paintings as scores based on different principles (e.g. colour scores in which he sets a precise list of musicians and sound sources, architectural, 12 horizons etc.). Another spur for a sound interpretation was provided by sound-relief drawings which Grygar explored from 1972. In 1976, this system of a rhythmical square grid gave way to the linear principle in drawings which can be also interpreted acoustically. Large-format drawings referred to as spatial scores are offset by White Images (1980).

In 1986 Milan Grygar participated in the Chambres d'Amis international event in Gent. The last phase of his work is associated with Black Images on the principle of black planes and colour lines in which the key part is played by fixed light. Milan Grygar's acoustic drawings were published by Supraphon on two LP's in 1969 and 1976.

Milan Grygar si možná jako jediný uvědomil, že vznik kresby, zvláště netradičními nástroji, je doprovázen celou škálou zvuků. V průběhu práce v rychlém rytmu svou kresbu slyšel. Nahrávkou na magnetofonový pásek pořídil přesný akustický záznam vzniku kresby. Od roku 1965 se začal zabývat vztahem kresby a zvuku. V následujícím roce poprvé vystavil akustické kresby spolu s jejich magnetofonovou nahrávkou. Dalším experimentem byly kresby mechanicko - akustické, v nichž jako kreslících nástrojů užil zvučících mechanismů. Od roku 1967 vznikala nová obsáhlá série pod společným názvem půdorysné partitury, v nichž má kresba kompoziční osnovu jako projekce rozprostřeného zvuku. V roce 1970 Grygar uskutečnil v pražské Alšově síni akci nazvanou „Audiovizuální vztahy“ při níž realizoval akustickou kresbu a provedl také hmatovou kresbu, kterou tvoří prsty bez kontroly zrakem. Od roku 1976 vystřídal tento systém rytmizovaného čtverečkového rastru principem lineárním v kresbách. Poslední fázi jeho tvorby představují Černé obrazy na principu černých ploch a barevných linií, kde dominující úlohu hraje fixované světlo. [1]

The optic-acoustic drawings of Grygar and his further activity in the sphere of audio-visual works have originated from another background and they are directed to other goals. In Czechoslovakia, the work of this graphic artist is probably the most original conception of the music-visual art at all. The author took part in a number of exhibitions, he presented his acoustic drawings, and his electronic scores were realized by the Karkoschka's group in 1973. Grygar's musical graphic cannot be visualized as music for reading, there are no analogies with notations, no forms of musical instruments, etc. In some figures he presents the art of action (the acoustic drawings with recorded sound have been published by the Supraphon Gramophone Company), in others the conceptual art (collage, groundplan scores, architectonic scores). Certain asimnilarity in the sphere of the creation of form or the origin 'of rhythm should not be considered from the point of view of analogy of objects, but analogy of action; the foundation of all arts pulsates with the common effort: to find the ex- pression for motion, a form for the unity of the motional, optic and sonic, a code for non-differentation and non-specialization of human activity in such a way, as experienced in children's games. This "playful principle", however, is equipped with a mature professionality and has the artistically most interesting goal: creation. Grygar's graphic works are monumental by their simplicity and purposefulness in a peculiar way. Anyone ,of them may be, but should not be, considered from the point of view of itself alone. They form a part of a current, which had appeared in the author's work around 1965 and lasts until now. In this current, audio-visual orientation has been connected with the activity of touch on the one hand, and with the elements of theatre on the other hand. Grygar co-operated with the musical theorist Vladimir Lebl, and this co-operation gave birth, among others, to the exhibition for the festival of experimental music at Smolenice in 1970. The Black-and-White Counterpoints by J. and J. Kořán of 1971 testify to the audio-visual character of this type of work.

See also: Czech_Republic#Electroacoustic_and_experimental_music.2C_sound_art