Art Calendar 6 April 2022

Heinz Mack - Vibration of Light -

Collateral Event of the 59th International Art Exhibition

 - La Biennale di Venezia - 6 April 2022

23 April to 17 July 2022 - Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

Heinz Mack in December 2021 in front of a Chromatic Constellation created in the same year, photo / courtesy Archiv Atelier Mack

As early as 1970, Heinz Mack, who is one of the most important representatives of kinetic art in the world, represented Germany at the 35th Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte - La Biennale di Venezia. In 2014, the ZERO artist, who developed his own language in light art as early as the 1950s, was on display parallel to the Biennale Architettura with his 7.5-meter-high installation The Sky Over Nine Columns, consisting of nine golden, light-reflecting pillars, in front of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore. Now the German sculptor and painter, who turned 90 last year, returns to Venice with an extensive solo exhibition in the Collateral Events section of the Arte 2022 Biennale.

Heinz Mack - Vibration of Light / Vibrazione della luce

From April 23 to July 17, 2022, the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana will present the Collateral Event in a spatial installation of large-format paintings, an ensemble of partly rotating light steles, and a four-meter-high mirror sculpture by Heinz Mack created especially for this exhibition.

In what is arguably one of Venice's most iconic venues, the Sala Sansoviniana, accessible exclusively through the Museo Correr, Mack's works will be placed in an art-historical dialogue with wall and ceiling paintings by Tizian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. A 3.40-meter-high stainless steel stele by the artist will be positioned in an inner courtyard of the Palazzo Reale adjacent to the Biblioteca Marciana.

A focal point in the exhibition will be canvas works in shades of black, gray and white, in which the theme of structure is paramount. The highlight of the presentation will be the six-meter-wide and three-and-a-half-meter-high painting titled "The Garden of Eden" on the theme of light, which Mack has been rethinking for over 60 years.

The background 

Heinz Mack, who in 1957 together with Otto Piene founded the internationally influential ZERO group, which was active until 1966 and which from 1961 also included Günther Uecker, explores the theme of light in his work. With the aim of exploring light in its purity as such, Mack, as a pioneer of Land Art, positioned his experimental light steles and objects in natural landscapes such as the Sahara and later in the Arctic as early as the early 1960s. 

The Garden of Eden (Chromatic Constellation), 2011, Photo: Weiss-Henseler Werbefotografie / courtesy Archiv Atelier Mack 

About the artist

Born in Lollar, Germany in 1931, painter and sculptor Heinz Mack, who studied painting at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, is one of the most successful and well-known German-speaking artists of the post-war period. In addition to the Biennale Arte in Venice, Mack was also represented at documenta II and III as well as documenta 6.

About the venue:

The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice was founded in 1468. Its holdings include important collections of Greek, Latin and Oriental manuscripts. In total, the storehouse of knowledge houses over one million objects, including incunabula, prints, maps and about 13,000 manuscripts. Among the library's many historical treasures and precious items are the will of the famous Venetian adventurer and explorer Marco Polo and two editions of Homer's Iliad from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Collateral Event: Heinz Mack - Vibration of Light / Vibrazione della luce

 April 23-July 17, 2022

 Sale Monumentali of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

Access to the exhibition via Museo Correr

Piazza San Marco n.52 - Ala Napoleonica I - 30124 Venice