About the work
Even the deepest and blackest black is permeated with light in the art of Heinz Mack. And even if, considered in purely physical terms, black means the absence of any light of any wavelength whatsoever, it is light here that lends the black surface its liveliness, that makes shades and changes in the tone quality, as well as the materiality of the black drawing on the black ground visible. The wealth of (non-) colour can thus reveal itself completely.
In this sheet from 2022, the painter goes to work with pastel and wax crayons on paper, places the white drawing on a black ground. Where the white structures of individual squares overlap and permeate one another, the white increases in its brilliance and comes to the fore, while the surrounding black recedes into the background and slides off into the depths of the painting.
“Black can never be black enough!”, according to the artist in the catalogue of the Licht im Schwarz (Light in Black) exhibition from 2001. “Just as white can never be white enough! I attempt to make ‘black light’ visible in my black paintings. Here, black is not the absence of light, but rather the presence of black light!”
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.
