Heinz Mack, born in 1931 in Lollar (Hesse, Germany), attended the Academy of Arts Düsseldorf during the 1950s. In 1956 he also earned a degree in philosophy at the University of Cologne.

Together with Otto Piene he founded the group ZERO in 1957 in Düsseldorf.

Besides his participation at Documenta II (1959) and Documenta III (1964), he also represented The Federal Republic of Germany at the XXXVth Venice Biennale in 1970. In the same year he was invited to Osaka (Japan) as a visiting professor. He also became a full member of the Berlin Academy of Arts, to which he belonged until 1992.

The central theme of Heinz Mack’s art is light. Sculptures and pictures are the media of his multifaceted oeuvre.

The exceptionally diverse complete works include sculptues made of different materials: light-stelae, light-rotors, light-reliefs and light-cubes. His oeuvre also involves paintings , drawings, India ink, pastels, graphics, photography and bibliophilic works. Another important aspect of Mack’s work is the design of public places church interiors, stage settings and mosaics.

His works have been shown in nearly 300 soloexhibtions and numerous other group exhibitions. They are also found in 136 public collections. Numerous Books and two films document his work.

Heinz Mack lives and works in Mönchengladbach and Ibiza.

 

Awards

1958 Kunstpreis der Stadt Krefeld
1963 Premio Marzotto
1965 1. Prix arts plastiques der 4. Biennale de Paris
1979 1st prize in the international competition Licht 79 in the Netherlands
1992 Großer Kulturpreis of the Rheinischen Sparkassenverbandes
2011 Grand Federal Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany
2012 Cultural Prize of the city of Dortmund’s arts council
2015 Heinz Mack was unanimously voted an honorary member of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf by the academy's senate
2016 The city of Düsseldorf bestowed the Jan-Wellem-Ring upon Heinz Mack
2017 Award of the Moses Mendelssohn Medal
2021 MiE- Art- Award