ZERO

ZERO was the name of an international artists group, established in 1958 by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene in Düsseldorf, which existed until 1966. In addition to its core members, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker, the group was comprised of international artists from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, South America and Switzerland.
ZERO consciously distanced itself from the most recent strategies of dealing with the past. It wanted to begin aesthetically and idealistically at point “zero”, taking an optimistic and idealistic attitude to promote change in the direction of a new aesthetic sensitization. ZERO propagated purist aesthetics and oriented itself to the monochrome images of Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana. In addition to combining sound, light and movement with spatial designs and colour schemes, the ZERO group experimented with painting, installations, performances and happenings.

The ZERO artists, whose number included Yves Klein, Georg Klapheck, Gerhard Graubner, Jean Tinguely, Hans Haacke, Dieter Roth and Daniel Spoerri, held a variety of so-called “evening exhibitions” and published a manifesto titled “ZERO - the New Idealism” which borrowed positions of Dadaism and Futurism. ZERO was the first artists’ group from Germany to attract widespread attention in the early 1960s with exhibitions in New York and Washington.

The exhibition “ZERO” presented the works and activities of 40 artists (11 German) with shows in New York, Berlin and Amsterdam. Thanks to the support of the Guggenheim Museum in New York und the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, it has been the first time so many works of the international ZERO movement were shown in a joint exhibition. The art historian and current director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm Daniel Birnbaum was responsible for the artistic and scientific management of the project and curated the exhibition as head of an international team of curators.

The exhibition in Berlin has been supplemented by an extensive accompanying programme with artist discussions, concerts, an educational programme for children and a major symposium. The project administrator, the Düsseldorf-based ZERO Foundation, wanted the exhibition to generate much-overdue attention to one of the largest and most important artists’ movements of the post-war period.

Artistic director: Daniel Birnbaum (SE)
Curators: Stefan Schneider, Valerie Hillings (US), Margriet Schavemaker (NL), Mattijs Visser
Artists: Hermann Bartels, Gianni Colombo (I), Hans Haacke, Oskar Holweck, Hermann Goepfert, Gotthard Graubner, Walter Leblanc, Adolf Luther, Uli Pohl, Hans Salentin, Nanda Vigo (I)

Additional Venues:

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 01.09.14 - 25.01.15
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, 05.07. - 04.10.15