The work of Helga Philipp is among those artistic positions that began in the 1960s and are devoted to extending the territory of fine art into the no-man’s-land between Op Art and concrete and kinetic art. Her drawing, object and installation-related investigations are based on a strategy of systematically reducing the forms used. The silkscreen prints that have been acquired for the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection are representative examples of her serial structural investigations: in the early 1970s, she began creating a silkscreen print series in several installments. She combines a number of different shades of black, white and grey to create individual rings – consisting of an inner and outer ring. Against a quadratic sheet with a monochrome background color, the first ring color consistently increases in strength towards the middle, whilst the second ring color decreases in strength in proportion, thereby creating the impression of a convex bulge in the flat surface of the picture. The prints appear to force their way into real space, and the circles appear to bulge upward toward the viewer.