With his sculptures of reduced form, the German sculptor Thomas Lenk took an innovative direction in sculpture, which was accompanied not only by his early appreciation in Germany, but also by his international recognition. In Thomas Lenk's initial creative phase between 1960 and 1963, he created works in which he was concerned with general spatial experiences, especially in the combination of blocks and rod elements. These works, christened "Dialectical Objects," reflect Lenk's initial closeness to American Minimal Art through their reduced form and the industrial materials he used: concrete, steel, and aluminum. His main creative phase can be located in the 1960s to 1970s, during which he produced his first works with the expressive title "Schichtungen" (Layering) beginning in 1964. The consistent motif of this group of works is, on the one hand, an overarching shape determined by the rectangle, combined with elements of the same shape and dimensions staggered flatly one behind the other, with the corners always rounded off. The attentive viewer recognizes how the sculptures intervene in the space surrounding them, changing it and thus redefining it. This effect is intensified by the differentiated color surfaces painted with luminous paints, which virtually collide with the materials he prefers to use, such as wood, aluminum, or steel. The high regard in which Lenk's new approach to sculpture was already held at the time can be seen in the positive statement made by the then director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Edward F. Fry, on the occasion of the group exhibition "Lenk/Pfahler" in Darmstadt in 1968, when he said that Lenk was the "most independent and important of the German sculptors". The gallery owner Hans-Jürgen Müller, who was surrounded by other renowned artists such as Erich Hauser, Georg Karl Pfahler, and Lothar Quinte in the avant-garde art center of Stuttgart in the 1960s, also felt confirmed in his visionary assessment and promotion of Lenk.