Summary
Light of the ZERO era
Art is the focus of the art of Heinz Mack. Mack began in the mid-1950s Mack to experiment with different materials and, by chance, created a structure that enabled him to create serial forms and reflections on light. Soon after, he created his light stele, light rotors, light reliefs, as well as experiments with sand and grid structures. Mack produced an artistic repertoire within a few years, one that resulted solely from the philosophy of ZERO, an artistic movement from 1957 to 1964 that he founded with Otto Piene, and later also Günther Uecker, and which fast achieved international success.
The exhibits presented in the catalogue are, for the most part, works from the early and main period of ZERO and are being presented for the first time publicly here.
Within the group of museums of the Ludwig Foundation, the Ludwig Museum is known for its focus on French, US-American and German Art from the 1950 onwards. In a double exhibition the museum will show a selection of works created between 1959 and 2009 by two internationally acclaimed artists: Heinz Mack and Daniel Spoerri.
Both artists, born in 1930 respectively 1931, one being the founder of the group ZERO, the other a founding member of the Nouveaux Réalistes, will be celebrating their 80th birthday next year and the following with grand, retrospective exhibitions.
Prior to this, both artists will exhibit in Koblenz from 30 August to 1 November 2009 - simultaneously yet separated spatially - works documenting the artistic beginnings from the late 50s/ early 60s onwards. The idea for a reunion of these multi-faceted artists arose amongst others from a picture taken by Charles Wilp in 1959 which was discovered during research: the photograph shows Mack and Spoerri drinking beer and smoking cigarettes surrounded by friends in a bar in Antwerp. Amongst the party there is the second founding member of the group Zero, Otto Piene, as well as other Nouveaux Réalistes, namely Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein, and finally Pol Bury, who - like Heinz Mack - produced kinetic, motor-powered sculptures.
There was loose contact between Daniel Spoerri and ZERO through his friends Yves Klein and his wife, Günther Uecker’s sister, as well as Jean Tinguely. Hence, Daniel Spoerri took part in the exhibition “Dynamo”, organised that same year by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene in the Renate Boukes Gallery in Wiesbaden. In return Heinz Mack sent a Multiple to Paris for the edition MAT (Multiplication d’Art Transformable), a project created by Daniel Spoerri, which made its debut in November and December 1959 in the Edouard Loeb Gallery in Paris. From this Multiple-series, which was limited to 100 pieces of work each, the Ludwig Museum owns two works by Daniel Spoerri. Daniel Spoerri’s legendary stamp can be traced back to Heinz Mack by the way, who marked the wooden boxes in which he sent his contribution to the edition MAT in Paris with an inscription: it shows a circle, along which lines he had written “Attention Ouevre d’Art”, centred by the name “Daniel Spoerri”.
Daniel Spoerri remembers: “Mack had marked a box with it in which he sent his MAT-objects to me. Back then, in the Rue Mouffetard in Paris, any board would do as a table.” Spoerri made a stamp out of it, which he used in 1961 for the first time. Since then plenty of stamps have been made and used in his correspondences, writings, on menu boards, as an addition to his signature – as well as in context with his latest project in Austria: “Eat Art & Ab Art”.
Both exhibitions feature the crucial impulses of their artistic work: as to Heinz Mack it was the invention of ZERO based on his experiments with light, which flourished from 1956 onwards and experienced its first culmination point during the ZERO-time. - In the spirit of the Nouveaux Réalistes, Daniel Spoerri developed a new theme regarding everyday culture which is concerned with food, its making and its decaying. Like no one else he links this with action itself. Up until today there is a correlation between Eat Art and concepts that he had initially invented and developed in a hotel room in 1956, namely in room No. 13 in the Parisian Hôtel Carcassone.
Although acquainted from the late 50s onwards, it drew Heinz Mack to Düsseldorf, then Mönchengladbach and ultimately to Ibiza, whilst Daniel Spoerri left Switzerland in the 60s to live in Düsseldorf as well, however he then moved on to Darmstadt, Paris, Seggiano, close to Siena and finally Vienna, where he has been living since.
Heinz Mack’s central artistic theme is light, with his sculptures and images serving as media. From the mid-50s Heinz Mack began experimenting with different materials and by chance developed a structure which provided a serial form as well as a reflection of light. Before long he created his light steles, light rotors, light relieves but also experiments with sand and patterned structures. Within a few years, Heinz Mack created an artistic repertoire which was completely in tune with ZERO philosophy, an artistic trend that he initiated with Otto Piene and later Günther Uecker, and which soon was internationally renowned.
All works exhibited in the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz are from the atelier of Heinz Mack. These works that have mostly not been accessible to the public so far, originate from the beginnings and the zenith of the ZERO-years which formally lasted from 1957 until 1964. At the same time he worked on the Sahara-project, officially announced in 1959. It was a realised vision of light in great, untouched spaces in nature which would be extended in grandiosity in the Arctic-project years later.
Short biography of Heinz Mack:
Heinz Mack was born in 1931 in Lollar, Hesse. In 1952 he founded the group ZERO in Düsseldorf together with Otto Piene. In 1959 he took part in the Documenta II in Kassel. From 1964 until 1966 he had an atelier in New York and participated in the Documenta III. In 1970 he was appointed professor for a teaching assignment in Osaka (Japan) and became a full member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin until 1992. That same year he represented the Federal Republic of Germany (with Uecker, Pfahler and Lenk). From 1962 until 1968 and in 1976 he went on expeditions in the Algerian desert and in the Arctic for working and filming purposes. In 2004 he was given the Federal Cross of Merit of the FRG in recognition of his work as a cultural ambassador. In 2008 the city of Düsseldorf founded the ZERO Foundation. The foundation was given archives and numerous works of the artists Mack, Piene and Uecker. It dedicates itself to research as well as supporting and promoting documentaries and exhibitions.
The focus is on all international artists connected to the ZERO idea. Heinz Mack’s works are extraordinarily multi-faceted: there are sculptures made of different materials - also monumental ones for outdoors, light stelas, light rotors, light reliefs and light cubes, paintings - as the Dynamic Structures from the ZERO time between 1957 and 1966, and the large-scale and intensely coloured paintings since 1991, the so-called Chromatic Constellations. There are also drawings, renderings in water colour, pastels, printed graphics and bibliophile works as wells as abstract photography with black-an-white handmade reprints and colour photography, produced with Dia-Sec processing. Finally, Heinz Mack concerned himself with the design of public places as well as churches, stage settings, and mosaics. In approx. 300 separate exhibitions and many contributions to other exhibitions his works have been shown until today. His works are part of 136 public collections. Numerous books and catalogues, as well as two films document his opus. Heinz Mack lives and works in Mönchengladbach and in Ibiza. Further information can be found on this website: www.mack-kunst.com
For the exhibition “Heinz Mack - Light of the ZERO-Time” a catalogue will be published by Kerber, Bielefeld, in German and English with articles by Dieter Honisch and Beate Reifenscheid as well as a text by Heinz Mack. 144 pages, numerous coloured illustrations. The catalogue can be acquired at the museum for approx. 25 €.
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