Although the grouping of four distinctive yet stylistically rather distant representatives of the younger generation of Czech visual art may not seem to make complete sense at first glance, the exhibition’s title suggests otherwise. The word con—the English term for meeting, usually based on a shared interest—already implies the lineup of authors is not random. In Czech the hyphen is also used when we want to express that the linked terms form a somehow interconnected whole. The semantic frame is then set by the words structure or rather construction, which open the route to the project’s conceptual core. On one hand they point to the structural nature of certain artefacts; on the other, they recall compositional rules that are inscribed in the works. The key principle is the shared constructive element—here, the line.

Within this project the line is understood as a fundamental tool with open form and meaning, operating regardless of medium. That is one reason painting, sculpture, airbrush, spray and embroidery appear side by side. A dictionary defines a line as a real or imagined stroke, or something that can be indicated by it—which already shows how broad the term is. It can be a physical mark, but also a graph or a timeline. There are battle lines, political lines and developmental lines, lines of the horizon and of the flanks. For the artist it is the basic component of drawing, probably the oldest visual means of expression. On the exhibition it appears as a line, an edge, a brushstroke, a contour, a gap, a weld or a seam—and its form determines its semantic or symbolic effect.

A line in its pure state is the humblest yet arguably the most important element of visual language. It is the quality from which virtually all visual thinking arises. The path that—this project shows in its interwoven presentation—leads equally to the human figure, to a landscape segment, to script, and into the reaches of abstraction. For that reason it merits attention.