The Harvard Art Museums announced the gift of Light-Relief (1960), a large-scale sculpture by internationally renowned artist Heinz Mack (b. 1931).
The work—a generous gift made by the artist’s recently established Mack Foundation in Germany—has entered the collection of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, one of the Harvard Art Museums’ three constituent museums. The hand-embossed aluminum work is a cornerstone of Mack’s oeuvre and an example of his material experimentation during his involvement with ZERO (active 1957–1966), an influential artist collective that originated in Düsseldorf with Mack and his co-founder, Otto Piene, before expanding across Europe to form a larger network.
“Light-Relief is one of Mack’s earliest experiments with light articulation. In this work, light itself becomes the medium by way of the artist’s manipulation of industrially fabricated foil to create a broad pattern of horizontal and angled striations,” said Lynette Roth, the Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum. “With Light-Relief, we are now able to represent Mack’s key role in postwar German art as co-founder of ZERO, as well as set the stage for his ongoing interest in new materials, light, and movement.”
Mack’s light-relief strengthens the museums’ holdings of works by German postwar artists, many of whom—like ZERO artists Otto Piene and the recently deceased Günther Uecker—participated in an ongoing exchange with Mack. ZERO was the first international art movement to emerge from Germany after the Bauhaus, the 20th century’s most influential school of art and design. The Harvard Art Museums hold one of the first and largest collections relating to the Bauhaus, giving works by Mack and other ZERO artists a special resonance with key Bauhaus works in the museums, such as László Moholy-Nagy’s Light Prop for an Electric Stage. In addition, the Harvard Art Museums Archives holds some of the papers of the Howard Wise Gallery, a key venue for kinetic art in the United States, and where Mack presented a solo exhibition of similar light-reliefs and steles in 1966.
Main Image: Heinz Mack, Light-Relief, 1960. Aluminum, hand embossed by the artist, on hardboard. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the Mack Foundation, 2025.107. © Heinz Mack/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College; courtesy of Harvard Art Museums.