by Eva Zanardi

http://www.theresponsiveiartadvisory.com/

When I met one of my idols, German artist Heinz Mack, I was admittedly giddy. I have been a passionate admirer of Heinz Mack and Otto Piene’s Group Zero for many years now. Group Zero was particularly active between 1957 and ’67, and I’ve avidly studied anything I could get my hands on about their work as a seminal international collective . On the opening night of his latest exhibition at Sperone Westwater (his 4th at this particular gallery) I was lucky enough to talk to the maestro about how he continually draws inspiration from patterns in nature and why he prefers his art to be an integral part of a landscape, free from the constraining walls of museums and galleries. In his words, “Light and shadows are everything [in his art]. They need to be free to roam in space”. When I asked Mack about the importance of the dialogue between nature and art, he initially replied by quoting the 14th- century architect Jean Mignot, saying “ars sine scientia nihil est” (“art without knowledge is nothing”) only before adding : “scientia sine ars nihil est” which means (“science without art is nothing“).