This first monograph on the work of Heiner Blumenthal presents large-scale paintings in conjunction with small-format drawings and b/w photographs. His works deal with the definition of the picture as a site, as well as with the question of the visibility and appearance of the picture within the context of the specific language of the respective medium. His pictures always function with a latent complementarity, a simultaneity of the present and the absent. By refusing a linguistic or otherwise recognizable categorization, they give birth to a non-conclusive process and thus address the act seeing itself as an independent activity. With the works of Heiner Blumenthal, the viewer becomes engaged in a shift of perception, which, as in an endless loop, is constantly thrown back on itself.