About the work
Orient and Occident, eastern ornamentation and western abstraction encounter one another in various ways in the work of Heinz Mack. The painter, who counts the discovery of structure and pattern instead of traditional composition among the great accomplishments of his artistic work, let himself be inspired by the aesthetic of foreign cultures on numerous journeys – including to Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, to Iran, Oman, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Borneo, Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal or Bangladesh – by the intensely brilliant colours, the wealth of ornamentation, the exuberant patterns of flamboyant mosaics and artfully woven rugs, as well as the rhythmically designed architecture. He in this way trained his perception and acquired a multitude of impulses for his own work.
Here it is the superimposition on the image area of a vertical-horizontal grid reminiscent from a distance of oriental grilles or Indian jali windows. The curiosity of viewers is aroused, and they look through the bars of the painting Kleines Gartenfenster (Small Garden Window) to an opulent, highly colourful variety of blossoms, but especially to a mysterious pictorial world beyond the space in which they find themselves – to the space of art, without which human existence would not be conceivable for Heinz Mack.
Text authored and provided by Dr. Doris Hansmann, Art historian
Studies of art history, theater, film and television, English and Romance Languages at the University of Cologne, doctorated in 1994. Research assistant at the Art Museum Düsseldorf. Lecturer and project manager at Wienand Verlag, Cologne. Freelance work as an author, editor and book producer for publishers and museums in Germany and abroad. From 2011 chief editor at Wienand Verlag, from 2019 to 2021 senior editor at DCV, Dr. Cantz’sche Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin. Numerous publications on the art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
