Press Preview: September 2, 2026 | 11 AM
Private Preview: September 2, 2026 | 7 PM
On View: September 3 – 13, 2026
July 6, 2026 (Berlin, Germany) – 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.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
Address
St. Matthäus-Kirche
Matthäikirchplatz
10785 Berlin
Opening Hours
Tuesday – Sunday | 11 AM – 6 PM
Press Preview
September 2, 2026 | 11 AM
Private Preview
September 2, 2026 | 7 PM
About Heinz Mack
Heinz Mack, born in 1931 in Lollar (Hesse, Germany), attended the Academy of Arts Düsseldorf during the 1950s. In 1956 he also earned a state examination in philosophy at the University of Cologne. Together with Otto Piene he founded the group ZERO in 1957 in Düsseldorf. Besides his participation at Documenta II (1959) and Documenta III (1964), he also represented The Federal Republic of Germany at the XXXVth Venice Biennale in 1970. In the same year he was invited to Osaka (Japan) as a visiting professor. He also became a full member of the Berlin Academy of Arts, to which he belonged until 1992. Heinz Mack has been honored with major awards including the Art Prize of the City of Krefeld (1958), the Premio Marzotto (1963), the 1st Prix arts plastiques at the 4th Paris Biennale (1965), 1st prize in the international competition Licht 79 in the Netherlands (1979), the Großer Kulturpreis des Rheinischen Sparkassen-Verbands (1992) and the Cultural Prize of the city of Dortmund’s arts council (2012). He also received the Grand Federal Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2011. In 2015, Heinz Mack was unanimously voted an honorary member of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf by the academy's senate. In 2016, the city of Düsseldorf bestowed the Jan-Wellem-Ring upon Heinz Mack. He received the Moses Mendelssohn Medal in 2017. The central theme of Heinz Mack’s art is light. Sculptures and pictures are the media of his multifaceted oeuvre. The exceptionally diverse complete works include sculptures made of different materials: light-stelae, light-rotors, light-reliefs and light-cubes. His oeuvre also involves paintings, drawings, India ink, pastels, graphics, photography and bibliophilic works. Another important aspect of Mack’s work is the design of public spaces, church interiors, stage settings and mosaics. His works have been shown in nearly 300 solo exhibitions and numerous other group exhibitions. They are also found in over 170 public collections. Numerous books and two films document his work. Heinz Mack lives and works in Mönchengladbach and Ibiza.
About the St. Matthäus Church
St. Matthew's Church stands today in the heart of the Kulturforum, which has become a prominent center for national and international art and culture. The church is surrounded by significant 20th-century buildings: the New National Gallery (Mies van der Rohe), the Philharmonie and the New State Library (Hans Scharoun), the Picture Gallery and the Print Room (Hilmer and Sattler). The church, designed by Friedrich August Stüler, a student of Schinkel, thus forms a link to the 19th century.
About the MACK Foundation
The MACK FOUNDATION, a non-profit organization founded by Heinz Mack in 2024, is dedicated to the collection, exhibition and preservation of Heinz Mack’s art and archive. The Foundation holds a substantial collection of artworks, covering all groups of works from his artistic oeuvre. It also preserves an extensive archive of original documents, notes and publications on the artist’s life and work.
About the PArt Foundation / Spiegelberger Stiftung
The PArt.foundation/Spiegelberger Stiftung promotes art and its dissemination. The foundation achieves its objectives primarily by supporting young artists with exhibitions and publications. They promote contemporary art through classroom support in schools, project work with works from the foundation's collection, lectures and seminars, and the provision of free teaching materials or via their learning platform part.education. Furthermore, the foundation advises art enthusiasts on all aspects of the art market and on building their own collections.
Image credits:
1. Heinz Mack, Untitled (Chromatic Constellation), 2025. 143 x 160 cm. Heinz Mack © VG Bildkunst, Bonn 2026. Photo: Studio Mack
2. Heinz Mack, Untitled (Chromatic Constellation), 2025. 143 x 160 cm. Heinz Mack © VG Bildkunst, Bonn 2026. Photo: Studio Mack
3. Heinz Mack, Spektrum el Mundi (Chromatic Constellation), 2026. 143 x 160 cm. Heinz Mack © VG Bildkunst, Bonn 2026. Photo: Studio Mack