Heinz Mack, the German sculptor, painter and object artist, is regarded as the co-founder of the group of artists called "Zero" and representative of Object Art among the German artists after World War II. He was born at Lollar, Hessia, on 8 March 1931, and from 1950 to 1953 he studied at the art academy of Düsseldorf, where he attended a painting class together with Otto Piene. The versatile artist also completed a course in philosophy at the university of Cologne.

Mack set up his first studio in the middle of the fifties. During a stay in Paris, he got to know members of the Nouveaux Réalistes such, for example, Jean Tinguely, Georges Mathieu and Yves Klein. In 1957, together with Otto Piene, his former fellow student, Mack founded the group of artists called "Zero", which had as its objective to bring about a reconciliation of art, nature and technology. Objects of light were one of Mack's areas or work. In the early sixties, he began to perform light experiments in Morocco and Algeria, which led to the Sahara project of light steles. During that period, designs for water, light and wind sculptures were executed.

Mack is an indefatigable experimenter regarding the spectrum of colored light. His works within the Zero group were geared to showing art's immaterialism by means of light vibrations. The light reliefs, which he produced as of 1958 eventually transformed into kinetic art objects. His versatile œuvre also includes sculptures – to Mack these are instruments of movement which make time visible through their rhythmic structures. Nowadays, the artist lives and works in Mönchengladbach and participates in numerous national and international exhibitions.