Herbert Zangs, Oeuvres 1952-1959 .

Herbert Zangs has long eluded the classifications of Art History. His “white works” were invented between 1952 and 1959. In the ruined Germany of the post-war period, he whitened everything he found, salvaged objects, silk or craft paper, bits of wood, boxes, fabrics, metal grids. It was a radical choice with respect to painting, an unheard-of choice with respect to the object. “The white adheres to the object like snow to landscape,” Herbert Zangs says. This exhibition lays special importance on the white period, all the way up to the first black works realized in 1958. From time to time a human form, a face, or a handprint are fleetingly evoked beneath the white paint, a moving presence filtering through the folds of paper.