JULIO LE PARC & HEINZ MACK

Julio Le Parc (b. 1928) and Heinz Mack (b. 1931) have, produced abstract works that are similarly transformational of ourunderstanding of the visual realm. Both of them were instrumental figures in the foundation and activity of two of the mostinfluential and transformative avant-garde groups in mid-last Century in Europe: Mack was one of the founders (with OttoPiene and Gunther Uecker) of Grupo Zero in 1958 whereas Le Parc set, along with various contemporaries, the Groupe derecherche d’art visuel–GRAV in 1960. Their work has played a leading role in the landscape of Western optical abstraction.

Parallel Inventions: Julio Le Parc & Heinz Mack takes ground on that fact, unfolding from connections and differences betweentheir art throughout the last 60 years. However similar at some points in their successful and accomplished careers, the worksof Heinz Mack and Julio Le Parc feature significant differences that contribute to define a signature character for each one:whereas both artists have never stopped delving into light, Le Parc has developed an entire repertoire based on anamorphicreflections, while Mack has stressed topological refraction.

These two seminal figures of modern abstraction are very much active nowadays. Repetition and texture, veils and mirrors,movement and stasis, ground and void are elements that both artists continue to use in order to induce unlimited aestheticeffects. Their most recent production is a testament to the fact that the greatest artists achieve the peak of their art at theirmost venerable and experienced maturity. In the words of curator Luis Pérez-Oramas, ‘like old Titian, like old Picasso theircurrent work has an effect of total restitution, as if the fruitfulness of age was the ceaseless infancy of genius.’