Background
Heinz Mack was born on March 8, 1931 in a small German village, Lollar.
He attended the Academy of Arts Düsseldorf during the 1950s.
In 1956 he also earned a degree in philosophy at the University of Cologne.
He attended the Academy of Arts Düsseldorf during the 1950s.
In 1956 he also earned a degree in philosophy at the University of Cologne.
1957
1958
1959
1960
1963
1964
1964
1966
1966
1966
1967
1967
1968
1973
1993
2003
Heinz Mack was born on March 8, 1931 in a small German village, Lollar.
Heinz attended the Academy of Arts Düsseldorf during the 1950s. In 1956 he also earned a degree in philosophy at the University of Cologne.
Together with Otto Piene he founded the group ZERO in 1957 in Düsseldorf. Besides his participation at Documenta II (1959) and Documenta III (1964), he also represented The Federal Republic of Germany at the XXXVth Venice Biennale in 1970. In the same year he was invited to Osaka (Japan) as a visiting professor. The central theme of Heinz Mack’s art is light. Sculptures and pictures are the media of his multifaceted oeuvre.
The exceptionally diverse complete works include sculptures made of different materials: light-stelae, light-rotors, light-reliefs and light-cubes. His oeuvre also involves paintings, drawings, India ink, pastels, graphics, photography and bibliophilic works. Another important aspect of Mack’s work is the design of public spaces, church interiors, stage settings and mosaics. Heinz Mack lives and works in Mönchengladbach and Ibiza.
Heinz Mack has been honored with major awards including the Art Prize of the City of Krefeld (1958), the Premio Marzotto (1963), the 1st Prix arts plastiques at the 4th Paris Biennale (1965), 1st prize in the international competition Licht 79 in the Netherlands (1979), the Große Kulturpreis des Rheinischen Sparkassen-Verbands (1992) and the Cultural Prize of the city of Dortmund’s arts council (2012). He also received the Grand Federal Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2011. In 2015, Heinz Mack was unanimously voted an honorary member of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf by the academy's senate. In 2016, the city of Düsseldorf bestowed the Jan-Wellem-Ring upon Heinz Mack. He received the Moses Mendelssohn Medal in 2017. His works have been shown in nearly 300 solo exhibitions and numerous other group exhibitions. They are also found in 136 public collections. Numerous books and two films document his work.
Blaue Pagode
1993Box of light spirals
1966Farb-Relief
1957Folium Argentum
1968Gitter-Relief
1973Gitter-Rotor
1967Indian Summer, Chromatische Konstellation
2003Kleine Wüste
1964Licht-Relief
1958Light Dynamo
1963Relief mit Spiegelquadraten
1966Schwarzes Lichtrelief (Black Relief)
1959Untitled
1960Untitled
1966Untitled
1967Veil of Light
1964
Quotations:
“In my body of work there is no chronological development. Early work, mid-career, late work; this linear thinking is a completely foreign concept to me. I subconsciously revisit certain things I’ve done before that I can develop further. This circular thinking gives the work a certain cohesion.”
“When I get to the studio, I completely forget how old I am.”
“We’re from a post-war generation that experienced the war. When the war ended there was a vacuum, a material and intellectual vacuum. We were completely isolated from the world and had to find out very carefully what would happen to art after 1945.”
He became a full member of the Berlin Academy of Arts, to which he belonged until 1992.
