Heinz Mack Lot n° 25

Heinz Mack Light relief 1959/1960 Aluminum on hardboard 48 x 48 cm. Signed and dated on the back of the hardboard 'mack 59/60' and with directional arrow. - With slight signs of age. Dieter Honisch, Mack, Sculptures 1953-1986, Düsseldorf/Vienna 1986, WVZ-No.516 Provenance Acquired directly from the artist (1960s); Heinz Möller Collection, Düsseldorf Exhibitions Düsseldorf 1972 (Städtische Kunsthalle), objects, actions, projects, exhibition cat., p.54 with ill. Berlin 1960 (Galerie Diogenes), Mack Zurich 1960 (Museum of Decorative Arts), Kinetic Art Literature Karin Thomas, Heinz Mack, Recklinghausen 1975, p.35 with ill. Already in his "Dynamic Structures" at the end of the 1950s, Heinz Mack abandons an individually structured composition in favor of a structure of serially executed formal elements covering the entire picture surface. This reduction and objectification allows the artist's personal handwriting to recede; the light begins to take on a life of its own on the small irregularities of the painting surface. A stringent further development of these structures are the "light reliefs", which, as a kind of frottage on metal, fully elevate light to the determining element. "An unexpected opportunity to make aesthetic movement visible arose when I happened to step on a thin metal foil lying on a sisal carpet. When I picked up the foil, the light had the opportunity to vibrate [...] My metal reliefs, which I prefer to call light reliefs, need light instead of colors in order to live [...] The possible beauty of these entities would be a pure expression of the beauty of light." (Heinz Mack, quoted from: Sehverwandtschaften im Werk von Heinz Mack, Ausst.Kat. Galerie Neher, Essen 1989, p.80).