Introduction

In the following, I classify my artistic work into existing art genres. The art form concrete art seems to me to be the most appropriate for this. I start with the original definition of concrete art, then introduce some newer perspectives on concrete art, in order to subsequently classify my art into this genre. I then outline and justify the way in which I present my work on this website, and finally present some of my artworks.

1.1 Concrete art – definitions

Theo van Doesburg (1930)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_art (04.11.2024)
The term concrete art was first formulated by Theo van Doesburg and was then used by him in 1930 to define the difference between his vision of art and that of other abstract artists of the time. In the opinion of Theo van Doesburg, the term 'abstract' as applied to art had negative connotations; in its place he preferred the more positive term ‘concrete’. Van Doesburg was eventually joined by Otto G. Carlsund, Léon Arthur Tutundjian, and Jean Hélion. In May 1930 they published a single issue of their own French-language magazine, Revue Art Concret, which featured a joint manifesto, positioning them as the more radical group of abstractionists. The key points made there were that "A work of art must be entirely conceived and shaped by the mind before its execution. It should receive nothing from nature's formal properties nor from sensuality nor sentimentality. We want to exclude lyricism, dramaticism, symbolism, etc…The painting should be constructed entirely from purely plastic elements, that is to say planes and colours."

Early concrete artworks typically feature simple, colorful geometric shapes, with the arrangement of the shapes usually based on formal ideas with intellectual aspects of the designs being in the foreground.

Zürcher Schule der Konkreten 1940er und 1950er Jahre
https://www.vonbartha.com/artists/swiss-concrete-art/ (04.11.2024)
Max Bill (Zürcher Schule der Konkreten 1940er und 1950er Jahre) wrote: concrete art we call those works of art that have been created on the basis of their very own means and laws – without external reference to natural phenomena or their transformation, i.e. not through abstraction. Concrete art is independent in its own way. It is the expression of the human spirit, intended for the human mind … Concrete painting and sculpture is the creation of optically perceptible things. Its means of creation are colour, space, light and movement.

Museum für konkrete Kunst Ingoldstadt
https://www.mkk-ingolstadt.de/ueber-uns/was-ist-konkrete-kunst/ (04.11.2024)
Concrete art was always understood as a modern art movement corresponding to the technical age, in which the serial principle but also industrial production without the artistic hand played a major role. As a result, kinetic art and computer art developed from this art movement in the early 1960s. Conceptual art also finds its roots in concrete art, as it no longer sees the artist as a technical genius, but as the producer of an idea who no longer has anything to do with its execution.

1.2 Further development of the concrete arts

The term concrete art was taken up widely after World War 2 and promoted through a number of international exhibitions and art movements.

Art Magazine (Berlin) No. 77, 2005 Gottfried Jäger (What is Concrete Photography)
https://lr-develop.de/concrete-photography/articles%23categoryArticles?id=5&locale=en (04.11.2024)
“As for the term ‘concrete’, initially it is certainly to be understood, like in Hegel, as the opposite of the term ‘abstract’. The concrete is the non-abstract. Everything abstract presupposes something from which certain features have been abstracted. By contrast, everything concrete is just itself.” (Max Bense)
Abstract-Concrete
This quotation from a work by Max Bense dated 1965 points to an important distinction which is of major importance in any discussion of what concrete photography is. Abstraction and concretion are different modes of perception and representation. They actually proceed in opposite directions. The abstract method proceeds deductively. It deduces from the general to the particular, for example, from what is generally visible to what is particularly non-visible. It minimizes the inessential in favor of the essential. An abstract image is thus an expression of the “idea” of the object. The concrete method proceeds in the opposite direction, inductively. It starts with the particular, “nothingness”, the non-visible, for example, a thought, an idea, and allows a new “object” to emerge from this: a complex whole, a construct. The resulting image is new, visible, yet quite different, bearing scarcely any resemblance to all previous known images. One can say, therefore, that abstraction idealizes an object, while concretion objectifies an ideal. An abstract photograph is non-concrete, a concrete photograph by contrast is non-abstract. It is something unique; it is itself.
Concrete photographs
Concrete photographs, however, are not only non-abstract, they are also non-figurative. They produce an object of their own. They are in themselves creative, and have no model. To this extent they are also non-symbolic. They neither depict nor do they represent anything. They bring new signs into the world. They are neither icons nor symbols. They have been liberated from these functions. They do not wish to mediate, they wish to be: not medium, but object. They are stubborn, egocentric, introverted; they show what they want and not what they should. They dream. Their beauty, truth and goodness are intertwined. They are absolute. And universal: a law onto themselves and self-absorbed. They are thus free of all the features which have been attributed to them or which they have acquired in the course of time. Yet at no time was this freedom free-of-charge; their pioneers sometimes paid a high price. They were derided and suffered abuse, prohibition and persecution.

Neo-Concretists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_art (04.11.2024)
The term Concrete also began to be extended to other disciplines than painting, including sculpture, photography and poetry. Justification for this was theorized in South America in the 1959 Neo-Concrete Manifesto, written by a group of artists in Rio de Janeiro who included Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape. Neo-Concretists believed that artworks were not simply static representations or forms; rather “art should be like living organisms” In Lygia Clark’s theoretical statement written to address the intentions of the Neo-Concrete artists, she explains that as artists they wish to “found a new, expressive ‘space’.” This movement believed that through a direct relationship between the artwork and the viewer this “new, expressive ‘space’” could be constructed. Neo-Concrete artists sought to create a multi-sensorial space which caused the spectator to feel more acutely their own body and existence.
Clark also wrote of how Neo-Concretism sought to decipher the nature of humanity by creating a “medium of expression” which allowed people to “become aware of unity as an organic, living whole.” It was not just restoring an awareness of the spectator’s body but also of humanity’s communal existence.

2. My artworks as concrete art

Museum für konkrete Kunst Ingoldstadt:
Concrete art is an immediate art movement based on sensual experience that can be grasped without any prior knowledge, but necessarily also without preconceptions. It is a non-representational art in painting, sculpture, film or installations that does not seek to depict the visible world. This is why the colors, shapes, lines and, more broadly, the materials are of particular importance.

In this sense I use color, shape, material. I also use elements created with the help of photographs, reflection, transparency, and spatial arrangement of two-dimensional surfaces. Material and also geometric planes show elements of the visible world; the decisive factor in a work of art is whether or not they refer to objects/phenomena of the visible world. The same applies to photographs. In my artworks, elements created with the help of photographs, materials and planes in general do not refer to objects or phenomena of the visible world.
The objective of my artistic work is to explore new possibilities of visual art in order to awaken associations in the viewer. In this sense, the intention of my artistic work is to create works that stimulate the viewer to make associations, whereby the associations should not be steered or influenced in a certain direction by my own associations that I have when creating the artwork. The viewer's associations should be their own original ideas, i.e. not general categories; the artwork should not be a symbol, a narrative or a description of something. The art works are merely intended to stimulate the viewer's own associations. A work of art is successful in this sense if the viewer is stimulated to make associations by the work; it is not successful if the work leaves the viewer indifferent.
I start a work of art with existing image/photo material, an idea and/or a thought. In the following, I separate what is impressive - what arouses associations - from my own associations/concepts in order to create a new "object” from them: a complex whole, a construct. Ideally, the original sources and conception are then no longer perceptible. Of course, my own thoughts, ideas and associations influence my artistic work - an artist's world of experience is always anchored in their work in some way. The decisive factor, however, is whether the reference to the artist steers the observer of the artist's work in a certain direction or merely stimulates associations (of the observer). I assume that my artworks cannot be perceived as a reference to my world of experience, however, a beholder's speculations about a possible intention or specific experiences can be helpful in triggering associations in the beholder. When I give direct hints about an idea or the origin of one of my artworks (a title or descriptive text), it is not to give information about the meaning or origin of the work, but only to stimulate associations. These references then have nothing to do with the creation of the artworks and are subsequently invented narratives to stimulate associations.

3. Presentation of my work on a two-dimensional screen

In my work I use color, shape and the material of the elements as means of design as well as elements created with the help of photographs. Visual effects such as material properties, reflections, transparency and the influence of the surroundings therefore play a decisive role when viewing the artworks. In my works, acrylic glass panels are usually arranged spatially offset (e.g. one behind the other), so that the visual appearance depends very much on the surroundings, the light sources and the position of the viewer. This means that the works cannot be suitably presented as two-dimensional static images. Furthermore, visual perception is not a frozen event, but a process that takes place over a certain period of time with different directions of gaze and eye focus. For the presentation of my artworks here on this website, I therefore use a type of presentation I developed for this purpose, which makes them easier to experience than simple two-dimensional scans. However, even this type of presentation cannot show how the objects are perceived in a real context. Ultimately, two-dimensional presentations cannot replace the real objects, but can only describe them approximately.
The presentation of an artwork here on the website takes place via a video. The video shows the art object with successive scans under certain viewer positions and lighting. The scans are not simple photographs, but show how the object is perceived by the eye (retina) of the observer in the respective situation. This takes into account the vision of humans (mammals in general), in which vision takes place via a series of short-term fixations (1 - 5 per second) of different parts of the image. Sharp and full-color vision is only possible in a very small area around the fixation point; the perceptible resolution (visual acuity) and colorfulness of an image area decreases with the distance of the image area from the fixation point. Another special feature of the presentations shown here is that although the videos are finite by nature, they are only part of an infinite, non-repeating sequence (like the digits of the number Pi) of displays. The original infinite sequence of displays is calculated in real time using an algorithm developed by me.