Heinz Mack | |
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 Heinz Mack 2008 | |
| Born | Heinz Mack 8 March 1931 (age 93) Lollar, People's State of Hesse, Germany |
| Known for | op art, light art and kinetic art |
| Movement | Zero (art) |
Heinz Mack (born 8 March 1931) is a German artist. Together with Otto Piene he founded the ZERO movement in 1957. He exhibited works at documenta in 1964 and 1977 and he represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale. He is best known for his contributions to op art, light art and kinetic art.
Heinz Mack was born in 1931 in the small town of Lollar in Germany. Between 1950 and 1956 he studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. In 1957 together with Otto Piene he started a series of what were called Abendausstellungen (evening exhibitions) at their studio in Düsseldorf. This series was the initial event for the formation of the group ZERO (with Mack, Piene and Günther Uecker as its nucleus) and the international ZERO movement. Among the participants of the ZERO movement were Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Jean Tinguely. [1]
In the early 1960s, Mack worked, with Gotthard Graubner, as an art teacher at the Lessing Gymnasium, Düsseldorf. [2] [3] In 1964 Mack, Piene and Uecker arranged the "ZERO Lichtraum (Hommage á Lucio Fontana)" at the 1964 documenta in Kassel. From 1964 to 1966 Mack lived and worked in New York where the Howard Wise Gallery presented a solo exhibition in 1966.
Although known for his minimalist outdoor sculptures, Mack also produced smaller works, both static and kinetic. Light Dynamo #2' from 1966, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of his rotating disc kinetic sculptures. Since 1991, he has been producing brightly colored, abstract, paintings in acrylic. [4]
1970 Mack was invited as visiting professor to Osaka, Japan. In the same year he represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale (together with Günther Uecker, Georg Karl Pfahler and Thomas Lenk). For the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich he created an illuminated "Wasserwolke" (Water cloud). In 1972 he was asked to create a 230 ft tall sculpture for the United Nations headquarters in New York (not realized).
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The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelová, Gotthard Graubner, Nam June Paik, Nan Hoover, Katharina Fritsch, Tony Cragg, Ruth Rogers-Altmann, Sigmar Polke, Anselm Kiefer, Rosemarie Trockel, Thomas Schütte, Katharina Grosse, Michael Krebber and photographers Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand, Christopher Williams, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Candida Höfer. In the stairway of its main entrance are engraved the Words: "Für unsere Studenten nur das Beste".
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Günther Uecker is a German painter, sculptor, op artist and installation artist.
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Gotthard Graubner was a German painter, born in Erlbach, in Saxony, Germany.
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Mat(tijs) Visser studied architecture in Delft, the Netherlands and is since then an organiser of performances and art exhibitions. He was head of exhibitions at Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf for eight years (2001–08), curated historical exhibitions and is best known for his Artempo exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice. He was the founding director of the international ZERO foundation in Düsseldorf from 2008 to 2017 and is a researcher at the Institute for Contemporary Archeology in Antwerp. As director from 0-projects he advises museums around the world on collection presentations.
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Gerhard von Graevenitz was a German kinetic artist, co-founding member of the Nouvelle Tendance and member of the op-art movement. He also belonged to the international circle of the Zero-Group. He is seen as one of the uncompromising representatives of the constructive-concrete art of the younger generation.
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Margarete Lauter was a German art dealer with the first Art Gallery for international contemporary art established in 1963 in Mannheim (Germany) after the Second World War 1945 mainly presenting works by German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Romanian, Belgian, Hungarian, Israeli, Slovenian, Austrian and US artists.
