About the work
Tor zur Nacht (Gateway to the Night), Darkness, Große Nekropole (Great Necropolis), Schwarzes Sternenbild (Black Constellation), Schachmatt dem Licht (Checkmate the Light), Kleine Sternkonstellation (Little Stellar Constellation], Stunden der Nacht (Hours of the Night), Requiem – the work titles of Heinz Mack’s black paintings appear just as diverse as the general room for association with regard to the darkest of all colours. It is conspicuous that the artist repeatedly returns to painting in black and white. It appears like a calm anchor in the flood of coloured works with their exuberant brilliance. One could without hesitation also reverse the words of Ad Reinhardt, the famous American painter of the Black Paintings, who once said about Heinz Mack that he avoids colour but also always returns to it. The artist in fact returns even today to the two non-colours of black and white and their intermediate shades, eliciting from them an opulence that is in no way inferior to that of his coloured works.
It is the cleverly used, shimmering white of canvas and paper, the colour grey in its many nuances and tinges, as well as and in particular the fabric-like texture of the pastel drawing – of a slightly different quality in each rectangular area – that constitute the vitality of this sheet.
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.
