10. Heinz Mack’s aluminium foil cross sculpture and telegram ‘Make my Absence Positive’ (1970) in studio C.04

The important German artist Heinz Mack co-founded ZERO with Otto Piene in 1957. He represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale, but also showed work in SGA.

Heinz Mack (b. 1931) studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1950 to 1953.

Heinz Mack

By the mid-1950s he developed his first ‘Dynamic Structures’ in painting, drawing, plaster, and metal reliefs. He became well known for his light and kinetic art. Together with Otto Piene he founded the ZERO group in 1957 and organised the now legendary evening exhibitions at his studio in Düsseldorf. Along with fellow ZERO member Günther Uecker, Mack represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale and exhibited works at the documenta in 1964 and 1977.

In an exhibition which is intended to demonstrate the progressive vitality of modern Düsseldorf, it is necessary to place the emphasis on the latest trends and developments. Hence the consensus of opinion between artists, organisers and advisers was that Group Zero should provide the starting point.

In a summing up of the exhibition in a document to be found in the Richard Demarco Archive (SNGMA), Demarco wrote, ‘Heinz Mack was prevented by illness from making his environment. A telegram from him told me “to make his absence positive” and the mirrored surface of the cross which dominated the centre of his room did in fact do that.’ Evidently, more work by Mack was intended for SGA than was shown.

Aluminium

The cross in the photograph, most likely a response to the art of Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935), is covered in aluminium foil. Mack returned to this theme in 1992 with another cross, this time in acrylic on wood for his Greetings to Malewitsch (Chromatic Constellation).

C.W.