The art of Heinz Mack

Heinz Mack was born in 1931 in Lollar in Hesse, and from 1950 to 1953 he attended the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Dusseldorf Fine Arts Academy) where he gained an M.A., and in 1956 he also obtained an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Cologne. Together with Otto Piene he founded the ZERO group in Dusseldorf in 1957. Heinz Mack has been awarded many prestigious prizes. The central theme of Heinz Mack’s artistic work is light, and his abstract sculptures and pictures are explorations of this medium. His overall range of work is extraordinarily varied: sculptures made of various materials, light-stelae, light-rotors, light-reliefs and light-cubes. His work also includes paintings, drawings, ink drawings, pastel drawings, prints, photography and written works as ‘collectors’ pieces’ as well as the designing of public spaces, spaces in churches, stage scenery, and mosaics.

According to Heinz Mack art should not be for a privileged minority, but for the “common man”. Mack’s art can be viewed and experienced in Mönchengladbach. For instance, the enormous painting which hangs in the foyer of the Borussia-Park football stadium, the colossal stone sculpture in Kapuzinerplatz, the light-stela behind the Kaiser-Friedrich concert hall, the playful coloured plastic display in front of the Maria Hilf hospital, the water and light sculpture in the foyer of the Stadtsparkasse in Bismarckplatz, or the stone/water/glass sculpture in the car park of the Santander bank in the same square. Heinz Mack lives and works in Mönchengladbach and Ibiza.