Exploring Heinz Mack's Zero Movement Art

Jeppe Curth 0:00

And welcome to the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners . In this episode we will discuss the work and career of Heinz Mack , a distinctive artist known for his pioneering contribution to the abstraction at the midpoint of the 20th century , for his founding of the Zero Movement and his innovative exploration of light and color . With me today is , as usual , our art expert , nicholas Robertson , and me your host , Jeppe Curth . Let's get started .

Nicholas Robinson 0:30

It is with Alex Rotter , at 400 million Selling , here at Christie's $400 million is the bid and the piece is sold . We've all heard about it . Sometimes it's front page news Important works of art are being sold for incredible sums of money . But can you get involved and become a part of the exclusive club yourself , and how do you get started while avoiding buying the wrong things ? That's exactly what this podcast is about . This is the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners , a podcast for those of you interested in the mechanics of the art industry , want advice about putting money into art , or simply want to buy something for your walls , to beautify your surroundings . Whatever your objectives , it is possible to put money into art wisely , to be considered , thoughtful and well-in informed in your choices and actions . Welcome to the art of collecting with an eye for curated beauty and practical value .

Jeppe Curth 1:37

Hi Nick .

Nicholas Robinson 1:38

Hi Jeppe , how are you doing ? I am fine , thank you you . Yeah , I'm good , thank you I am fine .

Jeppe Curth 1:43

Thank you you . Yeah , I'm good . Thank you , Nicholas Robison . A contemporary art expert with more than 25 years of experience . Nick has worked in London and was in New York for 20 years and more recently in Copenhagen . He has worked in the auction industry and was a gallerist in Manhattan for many years . For the last decade , he has focused on heavily resource-based acquisitions for his family portfolio for private high net worth clients , family offices and fine art investment funds . So today , Heinz Mack yes , Heinz Mack . Can we start by you walking us through Heinz Mack , beginning in the art world and his background ?

Nicholas Robinson 2:29

Yes , Heinz Mack is an interesting and in some ways a strange artist . He's one of these artists that you can mention his name to people and they will have something about him , perhaps lurking in the recesses of their mind , but they can't really put a finger on who he is , what he does , what he's noted for . Almost like there's not a particular hook that they're able to hang his work on , his , his work on um , at least in terms of what they associate him with Um . But Heinz Mack is truly one of the great pioneers of mid-century modernist and had a really seminal role in the explosion of different kinds of experimental contemporary art practices in the post-war period . He was born in 1931 and is still working today . He studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1950 until 1956 . Um and then , at the end of this period , along with his uh student , uh colleague friend uh Otto Piener um he formed uh a movement , uh called the Zero Movement , which was joined shortly thereafter by a slightly more celebrated artist , günther Uecker .

Jeppe Curth 4:11

Please elaborate a bit on that . What is the Zero Movement ?

Nicholas Robinson 4:18

Well , the Zero Movement . It was a loosely knit group of artists that emerged in Germany , initially formed by Mack and Piena whilst they were students , and called Zero . Rather like Ground , Zero is the sort of epicenter of a bomb or an explosion . Zero was considered to be the starting point , um , uh , you know , uh , a place of , of new beginnings . Um , uh , Otto Piena , um coined a phrase to describe it as a zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning . And uh , he and Mac um composed a poem . Um composed a poem that goes like this Zero is silence , Zero is the beginning , Zero is round , Zero spins , Zero is the moon , the sun is zero , Zero is white . The desert , zero . The sky above zero the night .

Nicholas Robinson 5:26

So , obviously , that's a very , a very lyrical way of describing their objectives and obviously you know you , you could have a chuckle at that . I think it's quite profound and quite beautiful . But some of the main themes were really , to begin with , monochrome , because really it was the , the purest departure from the expressive gestural art that had um gained in primacy , uh , in both the european and north european art , north american artistic practices in the post-war period . And then , further to the emphasis on , on , on , on the monochrome , the spatial effects of color and how this main constituent component could be affected by things like light and vibration and movement focus on collaborative happenings , events , installations and many of the early cooperative exhibitions that the various artists were involved in involved self-curated group exhibitions , self-published catalogs , moving away from the cult of the artist as an individualist .

Nicholas Robinson 6:44

So , as their theories spread , the zero movement was to become actually the most global art movement of the mid-20th century , ended up with active participants in many countries . So Heinz Mack was regarded amongst his peers as its leader , and the adherents included many of the great luminaries of this period , really legends of 20th century art . In France , notable participants were Yves Klein and Armand . In Switzerland , jean Tangley , the great kinetic sculptor . In Italy , lucio Fontana , piero Manzoni , enrico Castellani and even a group of artists in Japan that became very interested in these theories , especially Yayoi Kusama . So this , of course , is a sort of a who's who of the international avant-garde intelligentsia , with Mac at the epicenter as the founder and leader .

Jeppe Curth 7:49

Thank you , nick . Very interesting so this zero movement and these specific themes . How does Heinz Mack explore this in his works and why do you think this resonates so powerful and well with the audience and the collectors ?

Nicholas Robinson 8:04

so powerful and well with the audience and the collectors . Well , I mean , I think Heinz is really not as well known as his achievements deserve , and I think that's for a few reasons . One , his practice was extremely diverse . So he was known as a sculptor . He made various installations . He made works with unusual materials modern and contemporary materials , different kinds of metals , acrylic , things that would enable light to be reflected and refracted in interesting ways . So he was very much interested in , so he was very much interested in , experimenting with the experiential effects of light and colour . I mean , he would describe himself as a sculptor and a painter .

Nicholas Robinson 8:57

Most of his work sort of begins as a painter . In fact his first works from the late 1950s , 1957 really , they're monochromatic works that are predicated largely on an exploration of the grid and you know they explore registers of light and dark and a sort of oscillating movement that results optically from their juxtaposition . So you know he's become associated with minimalist art . That's sort of flowed from some of these explorations . He's been associated with kinetic art for the reasons I've just described . He's been associated with op art because of the sort of jangling vibrancy optically that his paintings have . So these are some of his achievements , or some of the sort of landmarks of his production , if you like .

Jeppe Curth 9:54

Okay , and which of Heinz Mack's pieces would you consider like essential for understanding his impact ?

Nicholas Robinson 10:01

Well , he's had an extraordinarily long career . I mean , he was born in 1931 and he's still working today . Um , he lives in uh , mönchengladbach in Germany and also in Ibiza , where he keeps a studio as well . Um , but I would say his early paintings , his early black , white , grisaille paintingsille paintings , are beautiful , they're very graphic , but there's also , you know , clearly , the sort of hand of the artist in them .

Understanding Heinz Mack's Art Market

Nicholas Robinson 10:33

I think that his sculptural works made in the late 50s , all the way through the 1970s , I mean even till the present day , but I suppose the seminal examples you can pick out a few different bodies of work from the various periods , but sculptures with the sort of interesting textural surfaces that enable different effects of light as it hits the surface , and then a group of works that really are the works that have captivated our interest and our attention , are a recent body of works , by which I mean the last 20 years or so , um , that are called in English , uh , the chromatic constellations , and these are really a ? Um , uh , well , both a distillation and a culmination of all of these um areas of study that he's been involved with for the entirety of his career . Um , so , so , yeah , yeah , the chromatic constellation . These are paintings on canvas and they are also somewhat premised on the grid , and these consist of contiguous blocks of colour and sort of often quite strange colours , if I may say , sort of dissonant colours or colours that would appear to be dissonant when arrayed alongside each other but create very interesting color harmonies .

Nicholas Robinson 12:09

These blocks of color . They're very sort of rigid and ordered from a distance , but then when you scrutinize the painting more closely you see that these blocks are much more uneven , much more brushy , lots of washes of sort of dry color built up in glazes , and then the edges of these blocks they sort of overlap tones where the colors are of the two blocks are mixing together and they , they have this very um , yeah , they sort of hum a little bit , if that's not too strange a way to describe it . Um , so you have this really interesting , sophisticated , very beautiful approach to abstraction and to studies um of color and light and how these various constituent elements interact with each other .

Jeppe Curth 13:17

Well , we have . We have bought Highz Mack Works for ourselves , but also when we advise clients about Heinz Mack Works , how do you place him within this current market trends and historical context ?

Nicholas Robinson 13:31

But his place in the market is very difficult to place , I have to say . And for me , for us , when we , when we look at an artist , um , you know , obviously we are , we're trying to understand the , the value of an artist , you know , and and by that I mean the sort of inherent , innate value of their , of their achievement , their contribution . We like to see how an artist fits into history , and not just where did they fit into history ? It's , did they actively influence history and did they change the course of artistic production with the things that they were saying and doing ? Um , and and obviously , for , for the case of Heinz Mack , that is a very uh , obviously , um , resonant , yes , um , so we can see that he's , he's , he's an artist of of of huge importance .

Nicholas Robinson 14:39

And often when we look at artists , we try and understand how they were received at the sort of inception of their career . What was the critical reception like , what was the institutional reception like ? But this has been going on so long for Heinz that it's really much more pertinent to say what has he not done , what has he not achieved ? And the answer is really nothing . Germany , at the 1970 edition of the Venice Biennale , he's had 450 odd exhibitions worldwide since beginning of his career in the late 1950s . Um , he's , um , you know you . You ask what , what museums , uh , is is he in ? I mean , there are no museums he's not in . I mean , he's in more than 150 institutions worldwide . So it's , there's a universal acclaim for Heinz Mack and yet , to go back to my opening comments , there are so many responses that range from yeah , heinz Mack , heinz Mack , to yeah , yeah , what you know what did he do again ? And I think it's incredibly interesting to try , and you know , investigate that sort of phenomenon . Thank you , nick .

Jeppe Curth 16:07

But what I also meant was what part of Heinz Mack's works do you find most appealing to collectors when considering them for acquisition ? Is it the visual , is it the history , is it the data , or is it a mix of it ?

Nicholas Robinson 16:19

Well , of course it's a mix of all of those things . I mean , you can respond to something in a very visceral way , you can follow up on your curiosity and your enthusiasm , and you can yeah you can verify the information that I've just described about his very obvious credentials .

Nicholas Robinson 16:42

Um , you know , we we take a look at the galleries that that show the work . We we try and understand what kind of availability is there , what kind of demand is there for the work , what kind of supplies there for the work ? Um , I mean , heinz has has really nice galleries . He works with um uh uh , para and Romero in Madrid , which is a wonderful gallery . Um , he shows with Speroni Westwater in New York and , of course , they need no introduction he shows with Ben Brown in London , presumably in Hong Kong , where Ben also has exhibition spaces . Um , he shows with Nara Rosler in Brazil . Um , which also had a kind of interesting relationship with um the zero movement . So you know , he's , he's well represented um around the world with highly credible places that are very serious in the championing of their , of their artists . Um , so , yeah , uh , we we've got a lot of information that that gives us a lot of faith that uh , he's , he's well looked after .

Nicholas Robinson 17:53

But , but , uh , but you know there's there's more to it than that . I mean , I I don't always get too hung up on , you know , if there's lots of people clamoring for the work if it's a highly inelastic supply and far too many people that want things . You know , sometimes the best things are hidden in plain sight sight . And you know there's just these strange historical accidents where the market has not really caught up to the art history . But invariably that's something that gets dismantled over time and changes . So you know , if there's people not knocking down the door for Heinz Mack paintings , that's fine , that's good . That means there's more interesting things , at least in the meantime , for us to be able to look at and choose from and acquire .

Jeppe Curth 18:45

Yes , that makes sense . I believe that his record auction result is $3.5 million , for for a large sculpture and large-scale painting is around $900,000 . Could you maybe share a little bit inside on the primary prices from galleries ?

Nicholas Robinson 19:10

Sure , I mean , I think that the works that you mentioned must have been works from the late 1950s . I mean , all of Heinz Mack's very biggest prices relate to the beginning of his sort of influential period . The paintings that I mentioned , the chromatic constellation paintings , which I think are extremely interesting things to look into , paintings which I think are extremely interesting things to look into . They , for a modest size picture , maybe 50 , 60 centimeters you're looking at maybe 60 to $80,000 . For a big two and a half three meter painting , you're looking at five or $600 thousand dollars , most likely . Um , if you want to buy a historic painting from the late 1950s , then you can , depending on the size and the quality . Um , you know , important early works can be acquired for anywhere from 350 , 400 000 euros up to a million more or less . So this gives a bit of a guideline . There's some very nice works on paper from the late 1950s that aesthetically bear all the hallmarks that you would want , but the sort of hierarchy of the medium makes them pretty affordable . They can be anywhere from sort of 80 to $120,000 . And they're extremely important historic works . Um , and I think , I think , when we , you know , when we , when you ask about sort of price . You know there's there's an artist's price relative to uh himself or herself , different periods of importance , different uh importance , different outputs they had made , which are maybe more or less popular and more or less expensive as a result . But I think we're also really interested in , when we look at an artist , we look at the cost of an artist's work relative to the industry as a whole . You know , how does an artist's price relate to the cost of the work of his or her peers ? You know , if we buy work by this artist , you know what is the opportunity cost of that . What are we not able to buy instead , because we're committing resources to this artist and I think for me , heinz Mack's work is extremely , extremely affordable . Um , uh , and I think you know there's a couple of really , really nice anecdotes about Heinz Mack , uh and his early , early , early days , um , that to me are very instructive about his relative importance and these stories . They speak to his status and his reputation amongst his peers , and these stories were told to me actually by Guillermo in Madrid , who is an extremely eloquent advocate for Heinz's work . In any event , heinz , I think in the late 1950s or maybe the very early 1960s , was traveling to Paris and he was going to meet with Yves Klein , and when he visited Klein , Klein made a big sort of performative gesture of deference to Mac , the founder of Xero and , in Klein's view , this great master . So Klein gave up his bed so that Heinz Mac could sleep in it and then Klein slept on the floor alongside as a sort of a gesture of subservience and respect side , as a sort of a gesture of subservience and and respect . Um , and and the other fun , fun story that I enjoyed very much Um , when Mac had his first exhibition , a lot of the works in it were sculptural works and there was one piece that was sold .

Heinz Mack

Nicholas Robinson 23:15

And this is , of course , not uncommon in in in an artist's , uh , the beginning of an artist's career , when nobody knows who they are or what they stand for or what they do , and you have to get a response and you have to get some momentum .

Nicholas Robinson 23:28

Um , a couple of years later , mac was traveling to Italy where he was going to visit , uh , lucio Fontana . And so he goes into Fontana's studio and on Fontana's workbench he sees this sculpture . So he learns that his first ever patron , the first ever acquirer of Mac's work from a commercial context , was Lucio Fontana . So I mean , you look at , you look at these two artists' work and you see how sort of gigantic their reputation and their the prices of their works , and you , you hark back to these anecdotes and you think of the regard in which Mack was held by these guys , and then you see , you know what Heinz Mack's work costs in relation to their work , and you know , you know what Heinz Max work costs in relation to their work , and you know , rationally , it actually makes it actually makes no sense . Um , so , so , so , yeah , so , of course there's many contextual things that we take into account when we try and ascertain value and of course , there's a big sliding scale of criteria , um , uh , by which we , by which we assess value .

Jeppe Curth 24:59

Well , Nick , from a putting money into art perspective , how do you see Heinz Mack's work fitting into a well-created art collection ?

Nicholas Robinson 25:04

I see Mack's work as sort of essential , definitive 20th century abstraction . I think that he is that key and that important . You know , when you look at the development of art in the 20th century , you know in the in the , the 20th century is characterized by lots of different movements that all have very kind of complicated theories , justifications , philosophies that explain what they do and why . But one of the key things of the 20th century is the sort of dichotomy between figuration and abstraction . And if you look at the abstraction trajectory , you know abstraction is primarily about the constituent components of a painting . What is a painting ? It's line and color and form of some description on a flat surface , really sort of puritanically um , adherent to this and he did , did it in in really interesting , innovative ways . Um , he made his first black and white paintings in 1957 . Um , and for contrast , it wasn't until 1959 , fully two years later , that Frank Stella announced himself to the world , uh , in the museum of modern Art's 16 Americans exhibition , and it wasn't until 1960 that he exhibited works from this group in the first show at Castelli Gallery . So you know , these works represent the cornerstone of Stella's reputation and he , I suppose , is considered the absolute sort of master for innovating this at the midpoint of the 20th century . Yet it could so readily be argued that it was Mack who had already paved the way for such an achievement . So that's how key Mack is .

Nicholas Robinson 27:01

And you know Mack as a German artist studying at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf , he would have been well grounded in the sort of German intellectual color theorists of the earliest 20th century . I mean , if you look at the , if you look at the faculty at the Bauhaus , and you , you see the , you see the , the lessons , uh , the theories , um uh , elucidated by , um , by Kandinsky and Paul Clay , and then you see , you know , you fast forward 80 years to painters like Stanley Whitney , for instance , whose work also costs millions of dollars in some instances . Heinz Mack is literally and figuratively the bridge between , you know , these early um sort of protagonists of color theory , to , you know , to artists working today that have become enormously celebrated in the market , um . So , by any , by any criteria , any historic criteria , any , any uh achievements , criteria , any achievements , any critical appraisal achievements , mack is a titan of the art world , and so of course it follows , as far as we're concerned , that at some point a proper reckoning will take place whereby he's properly appreciated in the way that his work deserves .

Jeppe Curth 28:30

So adding Heinz Mack to your collection today would be a smart acquisition and also something that's appreciated over time .

Nicholas Robinson 28:43

But my opinion is , undoubtedly , my feeling is how can this not happen , given what we know and what I've just described ? But you know , even further to that , the paintings are extremely reasonably priced and they are just sumptuous essays of light and color . And you know the , the , the , the , the , the purity of these works , the joy in these works , the quality of execution in these works , I mean , they're , they're , they're very , they're very rigid and programmatic , but there's also a great deal of levity and a great deal of expression , also within the sort of rule-based confines of the way that he evolves his paintings . So I mean , I just find them to be just outstanding , outstanding works unto themselves them to be just outstanding , outstanding works unto themselves .

Nicholas Robinson 29:33

Okay , so could you maybe then summarize the key points to make a heinz mack work attractive addition to a collection yes , uh , I guess , um , if we distill the things that we've , we've learned and we've talked about um , he's , you know , a historic figure , uh , almost unrivaled if you sort of tick off the CV achievements .

Nicholas Robinson 29:57

He's actually going to have a retrospective , I believe in 2025 , beginning at the Philadelphia Art Museum , which is a fantastic museum and that hopefully will bring a new audience and new sets of eyes to his work , um , and , and you know , to , to , to give new appreciation to what he's managed to do . Um , so that's , you know , his , his museological reputation , institutional reputation , critical reputation , fantastic , still working , still exhibiting , um , uh , a litany of of great galleries around the world that represent the work . Um . You know , sometimes we get excited by artists when it's clear that a revival is already underway and we feel maybe vindicated by our choices . But sometimes we get excited when no revival is underway , no rumblings of such , and it's just feels opportune that , you know , it's sort of an open , open season for us to get involved in the work before , before it's too late , yes , and we are very happy with our acquisition of mac works .

Jeppe Curth 31:06

But for people that maybe want to get started , where should they start exploring his works ?

Nicholas Robinson 31:12

well , I mean his works everywhere , even if you don't realize it . We were in in a small museum in olborg in northern jutland , um just a couple of weeks ago and amongst all the local artists that , with all due respect , nobody anywhere has ever heard of um , there were three or four Heinz Mack paintings , sort of strangely plonked in the middle of this mid-century section , um . So I mean you can go to any museum uh that has you know that purports to have a survey of 20th century works , and you'll find his work . Um . Obviously there's there's many sources that one can look at online . I mentioned his , his galleries . They all have really nice biographical information , really nice images that um show typical works of his Um .

Nicholas Robinson 32:01

He has a website himself which is a really nice historic archive . Um as well . I believe the zero art movement has a foundation , and so you can see more about his work there , also how his work relates to his , his peers um globally from this very important period in the 20th century . Um . It's not difficult to learn a lot about him , and in the course of doing so it becomes astounding that he's not in fact a household name like basically all of his peers .

Jeppe Curth 32:43

Thank you , Nick . So I think we are in the end of this episode . Do you have anything more to add ?

Nicholas Robinson 32:54

No , I mean , that's my homage to Mac . I'm very passionate about his work and I really , really urge people to go and take a look at it .

Jeppe Curth 33:05

Great . Thank you , and if you have any questions or you maybe just want to buy some art , you can always catch us on our email at jeppe at nordicartpartnerscom . And thank you , Nick , for this episode .

Nicholas Robinson 33:18

Thank you , jeppe . Yes , bye , bye .