Heinz Mack

Co-founder of the ZERO group and pioneer of a new understanding of art

Light is the central artistic theme of Heinz Mack, who was born in Lollar, Hesse, in 1931. In his painting, Mack understands “color as light and light as color”. Color intensity and light intensity determine his paintings and are used in ever-changing spectral observations. The colors flow into each other in a seamless and nuanced manner without losing their conciseness and luminosity. Mack creates rhythmic and sensual color sequences through the deliberate use of color contrasts.

In 1957, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene founded the ZERO movement in Düsseldorf, which Günther Uecker also joined in 1961. ZERO became a new beginning in art and created new design principles and aesthetic ideas in which light and movement dominated. For Heinz Mack, this period was artistically groundbreaking and characterized by permanent experimentation with material, light and movement. In addition to the “Dynamic Structures” in his paintings, Mack created numerous sculptural works such as vibrating light reliefs, kinetic rotors, monumental light steles and light-reflecting cubes.
The multifaceted work of Heinz Mack

Heinz Mack’s graphic works are particularly extensive. Until the early 1980s, he created complex works such as collages, silver and gold embossing, silkscreens on glass, aluminum and Ultraphan foil, as well as prints on double-sheet montages. From the 1990s onwards, traditional techniques such as silkscreens, lithographs, woodcuts and linocuts dominated.

Heinz Mack’s oeuvre is extraordinarily diverse: Mack creates his sculptures from a wide variety of materials, in particular light steles, light rotors, light reliefs and light cubes. His oeuvre is also characterized by paintings, drawings, inks, pastels, prints, photography and bibliophile works as well as the design of public spaces, church interiors, stage sets and mosaics.