About the work
In contrast with the painting of Tachism and Informalism that prevailed in the 1950s in Germany, which is said to also demonstrate a certain expression of bleakness and resignation following the horrors of the war, given their frequently dark colour palette, the artists around Heinz Mack and Otto Piene trusted in pure colours and the affirmation of life. Mack thus does not waste time with the reproduction of the visible, but instead takes that which is actually invisible as a theme: light and its spectral colours. With his Farbchromatiken (Colour Chromatics), the artist wishes to not only present the abundance of the colour spectrum to the viewer, but much more to express light itself as a colour. He also makes the relationships of the individual spectral colours with one another visible. The pastel from 2021 presents the spectral colours of dark blue through violet to light blue, green and finally yellow in a horizontal arrangement. The individual colour fields are clearly delimited from one another and almost automatically generate a harmonious composition. A certain dynamic manifests itself in the process through the fine lines. One must look closely, given the compositional inversion of this colour development.
Heinz Mack revolutionised the concept of art with his works. Light had to date been represented only indirectly in traditional European visual arts. Mack made light visible; initially with his light objects and light shafts, and as of 1991 also in his Chromatische Konstellationen (Chromatic Constellations), in which light and its spectral colours are thematised. This is not a matter of self-expression, but instead primarily an analytical contribution that places chromatic values from a purely artistic context into an objective one.
Text authored and provided by Dr Andrea Fink, art historian
The art historian, curator and freelance publicist Andrea Fink studied art history, cultural studies and humanities, modern history and philosophy in Bochum and Vienna. Doctorate in 2007 on the work of the Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. As a freelance curator and art consultant, her clients include, among others, the Kunstverein (art association) Ahlen, Kunstverein Soest, Wella Museum, Museum am Ostwall Dortmund, ThyssenKrupp AG, Kulturstiftung Ruhr, Osthaus Museum Hagen, Franz Haniel GmbH, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria.
