Transformation disc

Oil on wood
1957
30 x 30 cm

In the collection of SMK – The National Gallery of Denmark.

In this transformation disk Mertz plays with constructivist painting. When the disk is turned, the painting is transformed. Compositional concepts such as balance and dynamics are given concrete form as actual movement. Right from his earliest career Mertz kept the purged artistic universe of Constructivism open towards a world of material and cultural forms. He did not aim for an absolute work, but was interested in the mutable. This manifested itself in many ways: As physical and optical movement in the work, as shifts between elements of a series, and particularly in the activation of the spectator. Allowing spectators to interact with and change the work he sought to create a dynamic interplay with a reality outside the painting
– Marianne Torp, Senior research curator, SMK