Heinz Mack Spectrum Mundi

Heinz Mack will present 'Spectrum Mundi', a solo exhibition at the St. Matthäus-Church on view during Berlin Art Week from September 3 – 13, 2026. Developed through a collaboration between the MACK FOUNDATION and the PArt Foundation / Spiegelberger Stiftung, the exhibition brings together 24 new Chromatic Constellation paintings created over the course of the last year. It takes its title from the Latin word ‘spectrum’, referring both to a multifaceted spectrum of color and to the image that takes shape within our imagination.

Encapsulating Mack’s enduring exploration of color, perception, and the immaterial qualities of light, this unified suite of 24 paintings are deliberately aligned in scale and dimension. They correspond to the 24-hour cycle of the day, mapping its shifting rhythms from the brightness of morning light to the darker tones of the evening. While linked by their shared format, each painting retains its own distinct chromatic identity. Their structure arises not from a predetermined compositional system but from the  relationships between the colors themselves. Throughout his career, Mack has regarded color as an essential element of human experience, drawn to the tension between its material presence and its intangible effects on perception.

The 24-hour structure of the works reflects Mack’s broader meditation on cycles of time and permanence. As he explains: “As is well known, art captures people’s interest only “temporarily,” and art-historical movements also give rise to a sort of “tempi passati,” typical of our fast-paced times. The 24-hour aspect, of course, has been true since time immemorial. The sun’s daily cycle lasts 24 hours.”

After largely abandoning painting in 1966 in favor of reliefs, sculpture, and Land-Art, Mack returned to the medium twenty-five years later, initiating an expansive body of work that reaffirmed color as a primary field of artistic inquiry. Central to this renewed practice are the Chromatic Constellations, begun in 1991, in which color itself becomes both subject and structure after decades focused on a primarily monochromatic palette. Through subtle interactions between pigment, transparency, and light, these works generate a sense of movement, depth, and spatial complexity.

Across more than seven decades, Mack has shaped the course of post-war European art through his pioneering exploration of light as both material and medium. In 1957, together with Otto Piene, he co-founded the avant-garde ZERO movement, which proposed an art grounded in universal elements, challenging established conventions and fundamentally reshaping the visual language and philosophical discourse of its time. Presented in the year of the artist’s 95th birthday, 'Spectrum Mundi' extends this radical vision into the present, celebrating the continued evolution and significance of his artistic practice.