Lichtrelief (Light Relief)

Characteristic of the zeitgeist, Lichtrelief (Light Relief) bears witness to the Zero group's disregard for traditional modes of construction in favour of experimentation with new materials and processes. With its reverberating corrugated texture and luminescent palette, Mack explores the dematerialization of art in the present work. Anticipated initially only by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, the founders of the influential Zero movement, and confirmed in 1961 by the addition of Günther Uecker, Zero was spurred by the resolution to abandon traditional modes of gestural painting and overcome ossified matrices of thinking and seeing. As Mack explained 'We were goaded on by the question, how could we make a fresh start, having resolved irreversibly that we would abandon the old, secure niches. We were motivated to take on the crisis in order to overcome it by creative means, for all the doubts, all the vexation, all the isolation associated with such a tack, all the wilful criticism, the ill will and derision with which bourgeois society and its institutional transmitters of cultural values ostracised us […] We wanted, and had to, forsake the familiar territories in order to seek out new spaces whose coordinates were unknown. In these wayless spaces only the way was the goal’ (H. Mack, 2009, quoted on www.zerofoundation.de/statements.html [accessed 22 February 2016]).

Prefiguring the concerns of kinetic and optical art, Lichtrelief (Light Relief) is a visual exploration of the realms of oscillation that actively integrate the viewer to influence the visual process through kinetic interference. The radiant vertical rays impregnate Lichtrelief (Light Relief) with a sensorial value, encapsulating the immateriality of light. Investigating the malleability of aluminium, Mack engages with the sculptural qualities of light to create a rhythmically oscillating surface. 'Although it may appear that I have devoted my work exclusively to light, I must explain, however, that it has always been and still is my intention to make objects the way of appearance of which is immaterial; to reach this goal, above all - light and motion are my means' (Heinz Mack quoted in: D. Honisch, Mack Sculptures 1953-1986, Dusseldorf 1987, p. 12).