Picture "Untitled, Net Grid (The Diligence of Bees)" (1968) (Unique piece)
Picture "Untitled, Net Grid (The Diligence of Bees)" (1968) (Unique piece)
Quick info
unique piece | signed | dated | ink on paper | framed | size 30 x 39 cm
Detailed description
Picture "Untitled, Net Grid (The Diligence of Bees)" (1968) (Unique piece)
Early on, Heinz Mack emphasized his working method on formal elements such as vibrations, oscillations or serial structures: "I think that lines condense into an energy field, a structure in which all parts, all elements stand in an indissoluble connection to each other and begin to vibrate or even oscillate if we observe them with sensitivity and calmness".
In the unique piece offered here, Heinz Mack presents us with a net-like or honeycomb-like structure in black on white ground. Through his unique technique and the partially condensing ink lines, the artist creates a work rich in contrast, which seems to move due to the dark and light areas. The lines appear delicate but, at the same time, full of intensity and power.
Brush drawing with diluted ink on paper, 1968. Signed and dated. Motif size/sheet size 20,5 x 30 cm. Size in frame 30 x 39 cm as shown.
About Heinz Mack
Together with Otto Piene and Günther Uecker, Heinz Mack brought a breath of fresh air to the art scene through the artist group ZERO from the end of the 1950s onwards. He made light his central artistic theme, which he explored in countless sculptures, graphics, and pictures as well as in the design of public spaces during his more than 50-year career. Mack particularly appreciates the inner logic and discipline of graphic art and describes it as the "language of his hand".
Mack, born in 1931, is a multiple documenta participant, represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale and is a recipient of the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. His works are represented in well over 100 collections, and renowned art houses worldwide regularly show his work.
The initial spark for Mack's exploration of light is a coincidence. He stepped on a piece of metal foil lying on a carpet. The step left behind a pattern that swayed dynamically in the light. Mack transformed light into his medium, experimenting with it in spatial installations, objects, sculptures, and on canvases. He places legendary light installations in the Sahara and thus became a pioneer of Land Art. Through his experiments, he anticipated what artists like Olafur Eliasson successfully do today. With scientific curiosity, he uses reflections and materials such as metal mesh or aluminium. "I love colour as a medium in which light is expressed. It's so beautiful that we live in a colourful world" (Heinz Mack).
The Italian avant-garde artist Lucio Fontana said in 1964 about the work of Heinz Mack: "The quality of light to be pure continuity is the problem Heinz Mack develops in his work. It is his intention to simplify the visible. He reduces it to what constitutes its essence. His goal is to represent not the optical-visual shape within a merely aesthetic order, but the unmediated idea, which has the merit of being pure information."
Term for paintings and sculptures that are detached from the representational depiction, which spread throughout the entire western and parts of the eastern world from around 1910 onwards in ever new stylistic variations. The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, born in 1866, is considered the founder of abstract art. Other important artists of abstract art are K.S. Malewitsch, Piet Mondrian, and others.
A one-of-a-kind or unique piece is a work of art that has been personally created by the artist. It exists only once due to the type of production (oil painting, watercolours, drawing, etc.).
In addition to the classic unique pieces, there exist the so-called "serial unique pieces". They present a series of works with the same colour, motif and technique, manually prepared by the same artist. The serial unique pieces are rooted in "serial art", a type of modern art, that aims to create an aesthetic effect through series, repetitions and variations of the same objects or themes or a system of constant and variable elements or principles.
In the history of arts, the starting point of this trend was the work "Les Meules" (1890/1891) by Claude Monet, in which for the first time a series was created that went beyond a mere group of works. The other artists, who addressed to the serial art, include Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and above all Gerhard Richter.