Günther Uecker, barefoot, by Lothar Wolleh

Zero (usually styled as ZERO) was an artist group founded in the late 1950s in Düsseldorf by

Heinz Mack Heinz Mack (born March 8, 1931) is a German artist. Together with Otto Piene he founded the ZERO movement in 1957. He exhibited works at documenta in 1964 and 1977 and he represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale. He is best known for ...

and

Otto Piene Otto Piene (pronounced PEE-nah, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; a ...

. Piene described it as "a zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning".Karen Rosenberg (August 21, 2014)
Hail, the Postwar Avant-Garde: ‘The Art of Zero,’ at Purchase College
'' New York Times''. In 1961

Günther Uecker Günther Uecker (; born 13 March 1930) is a German sculptor, op artist and installation artist. Biography Uecker was born in Wendorf, Mecklenburg.Günther Uecker Günther Uecker (; born 13 March 1930) is a German sculptor, op artist and installation artist. Biography Uecker was born in Wendorf, Mecklenburg.Arman Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') to ...

, Jean Tinguely, Yves Klein, and

Bernard Aubertin Bernard Aubertin () was a French artist born in 1934 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France. He died in August 2015 in Reutlingen, Germany. He met Yves Klein in 1957 and joined the Zero movement during the 1960–1961 period. One of his texts, (″' ...

), Italy (

Lucio Fontana Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist. He is mostly known as the founder of Spatialism. Early life Born in Rosario, to Italian immigrant parents, he was t ...

, Piero Manzoni), Belgium (

Pol Bury Pol Bury (26 April 1922 – 28 September 2005) was a Belgian sculptor who began his artistic career as a painter in the Jeune Peintre Belge and COBRA groups. Among his most famous works is the fountain-sculpture L'Octagon, located in San Francis ...

), and Switzerland (

Christian Megert Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

).David Galloway (March 3, 2006)
European movement with Zero as the sum of its parts
''

International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...

''. Many of the ZERO artists are better known for their affiliations with other movements, including Nouveau Réalisme, Arte Povera,

Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

Op Art Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions. Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images ...

Land Art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...

, and Kinetic Art.

Guiding principles and styles

Exhibitions

Early shows

In 1959, artists

, Paul van Hoeydonck, Jean Tinguely, and Daniel Spoerri organized ''Motion in Vision – Vision in Motion'', an exhibition at Hessenhuis in Antwerp that for the first time gave ZERO an international audience. This show was the first major ZERO exhibition, after previous shows held at their studio by Mack and Piene in 1957. In the early 1960s, the artist

Henk Peeters Henk Peeters (8 December 1925 – 13 April 2013) was a Dutch artist. He was an active member of the ZERO movement. Peeters was born in The Hague. He studied Fine Art at the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague and taught from 1 ...

presented the international director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Willem Sandberg, with monochromatic works of the young European artists' generation. In a close exchange with Mack, Piene, and

Günther Uecker Günther Uecker (; born 13 March 1930) is a German sculptor, op artist and installation artist. Biography Uecker was born in Wendorf, Mecklenburg.Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni, the original concept was further developed. This was the result of a 1962 exhibition which, besides monochromy, also concerned itself with color, vibration, light, and movement. There were works by European artists, works from North and South America, as well as from Japan. The exhibition was initiated, organized, and financed by the artists themselves. The selection of the participants took place likewise by the artists, without curatorial assistance. The exhibition was accompanied by a jointly developed catalog.

Peak period shows

Retrospective shows

Between 1993 and 1999, four ZERO exhibitions took place at Galerie Villa Merkel in Esslingen, curated by art historian Renate Wiehager. The exhibition series, which was specific to the NUL Group from the Netherlands, ZERO Italy, and ZERO Paris, was completed in 1999 with the exhibition ''Zero Deutschland 1960''. Apart from the three protagonists of the German ZERO movement, Weihager devoted herself to a further twenty artists whose works ranged from the late 1950s to the 1990s. Unlike in the 1960s, this series of exhibitions was not initiated, organized, and financed by the artists themselves. A series of four publications was issued, with a first comprehensive overview of ZERO as a European movement, in four languages: German, English, Dutch, and French. In 2006, the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf presented an overview exhibition of the international ZERO movement, with paintings and installations from many countries. Mack, Piene, and Uecker curated their own areas. Jean-Hubert Martin and Mattijs Visser organized the exhibit, with input from Henk Peeters. The exhibition covered several aspects of the exhibitions from the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in the form of reconstructions of former installations. Also in 2006, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg presented 120 works by 50 Zero artists. The works were loaned by the German collectors Gerhard and Anna Lenz, who had been involved with the Zero movement almost from its beginnings. Gerhard had first encountered the Zero group at an exhibition of Piene’s work in a Düsseldorf bookshop more in 1963. Starting in 1974, the couple exhibited the collection in 12 shows over 25 years, including in Frankfurt, Barcelona, Moscow, and Warsaw.Catherine Hickley (January 20, 2010)
Klein, Fontana Collectors Lenz to Auction $19.5 Million of Art
'' Bloomberg''. In 2013, the

Museu Oscar Niemeyer The Oscar Niemeyer Museum ( pt, Museu Oscar Niemeyer) is located in the city of Curitiba, in the state of Paraná, in Brazil. It was inaugurated in 2002 with the name Novo Museu or New Museum. With the conclusion of remodeling and the constructi ...

(Curitiba, Brazil) showcased ''Zero'', the largest exhibition ever held in Brazil featuring this group present works by key artists of the movement, alongside Latin American artists such as Hércules Barzotti, Lygia Clark and Abraham Palatnik from Brazil, Gertrud Goldschmidt (GEGO) from Venezuela, and

Gyula Kosice Gyula Kosice ( hu, Falk Gyula; 26 April 1924 – 25 May 2016), born as Ferdinand Fallik, was a Czechoslovakian-born and naturalized Argentine sculptor, plastic artist, theorist, and poet. He played a pivotal role in defining the concrete and non ...

from Argentina, all of whom used the same visual languages than the original members in the same time period. This venue traveled to

Iberê Camargo Foundation The Iberê Camargo Foundation () is a cultural institution and museum located in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The Foundation is dedicated to preserving and promoting the work of Brazilian painter Iberê Camargo (1914–1994). History Created in 1995, o ...

at Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, and finally was shown in 2014 on Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo at São Paulo, Brazil."ZERO" – exhibition catalog of the most important travelling exhibition in America of Zero Group, edited by Heike van der Valentyn, with essays by Otto, Piene, Paulo Venencio Filho, Heinz-Norbert Jocks, Heike van den Valentyn, published by Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Iberê Camargo Foundation & Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and printed in São Paulo, Brazil, 2013, Also in 2013, an exhibition at the

Neuberger Museum of Art Neuberger Museum of Art is located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is affiliated with Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. It is the nation's tenth-largest university museum. The museum is one of 14 sites on ...

included works from the museum's permanent collection by artists who were part of or exhibited with Group Zero, including

Getulio Alviani Getulio Alviani (5 September 1939 in Udine – 24 February 2018 in Milan) was an Italian painter based in Milan. He is considered to be an important International Optical - kinetic artist. Life and work Alviani was born in Udine, where he show ...

, Hartmut Böhm, Enrico Castellani,

Gianni Colombo Gianni Colombo (Milan, 1933 – Melzo, 3 February 1993) was an Italian artist, member of the kinetic art movement. In the 1960s, Colombo attended Accademia di Brera in Milan, where he met Davide Boriani, Gabriele De Vecchi, Giovanni Ancesch ...

, Heinz Mack, Almir Mavignier, Henk Peeters, Otto Piene,

Jesús Rafael Soto Jesús Rafael Soto (June 5, 1923 – January 17, 2005) was a Venezuelan op and kinetic artist, a sculptor and a painter. His works can be found in the collections of the main museums of the world, including Tate (London), Museum Ludwig (Germany ...

, Jean Tinguely, Luis Tomasello, and Günther Uecker. In 2015, an exhibition titled ''ZERO: Countdown to the Future'' was on display at the Multimedia Museum in Moscow, and in Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Later that year, the Guggenheim Museum showcased the group’s work i
''ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s-60s''
an exhibition that featured more than 40 artists from over 10 countries. This was the first large-scale historical survey of the group's work in the United States. The exhibition was initiated by the ZERO foundation. In 2015 and 2016, this exhibit toured to the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Various subjects – articulated in time, space, color, reflection, vibration, light, and movement – showed works of art from the central years of the ZERO movement from 1957 to 1967. With around 40 artists, the exhibition followed the ZERO spirit, from two-dimensional paintings to the three-dimensional space. At the Martin-Gropius-Bau, artists from Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Venezuela, Switzerland, Japan, the US, and Brazil were represented with around 200 works and ten space-filling installations. Among them were some rare works from renowned collections such as the Georges Pompidou Center, the Morsbroich Museum, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. In addition, for the first time, works by several artists were shown: Manzoni, Verheyen, Fontana, Tinguely, Klein, Mack, and Piene. The highlight of the collaboration was the space-saving historical installation ''Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana)'' by Mack, Piene, and Uecker, which was presented for the first time at the Documenta III 1964 exhibition. Mack presented an installation as an homage to his ZERO friends. Exhibitions and events were documented using previously unpublished photos and videos. In 2018, the Museum of Old and New Art (Hobart, Tasmania) organized a large show around the theme of ''Vibration'', with historical old and reconstructed installations, the first major show of ZERO in Australia. The exhibition included large installations by Castellani, Gianni Colombo, Mack, Peeters, Piene, Soto, Tinguely, and Uecker. A separate section was, for the first time in a ZERO show, dedicated to "father figures" of the movement:

Victor Vasarely Victor Vasarely (; born Győző Vásárhelyi, ; 9 April 1906 – 15 March 1997) was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the Op art movement. His work entitled ''Zebra'', created in 1937, is consi ...

, Marcel Duchamp, and

ZERO Foundation

The ZERO Foundation is a German cultural institute established in December 2008, with support of Düsseldorf-based ZERO artists, Heinz Mack], Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker (or their estates), along with

Museum Kunst Palast The Kunstpalast, formerly Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf is an art museum in Düsseldorf. History The roots of the museum go back around 300 years. In 1932, the collection of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Academy of Art) was housed in the Kunstmus ...

. It is funded by the state capital , Düsseldorf. The artists donated works as well as their archives from the ZERO period comprising photographs, correspondence, invitation cards, newspaper clippings, and other documents. The foundation was set up by

Mattijs Visser Mat(tijs) Visser (born 1958 in The Hague, Netherlands) studied architecture in Delft, the Netherlands and is since then an organiser of performances and art exhibitions. He was head of exhibitions at Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf for eight y ...

, who led it from 2009-2017. ;Organisation * Staff: Dr. Barbara Könches, director; Dr. Tiziana Caianiello, Katrin Lohe, Laura Weber, Thekla Zell * Board of Directors: Dr. Friderike Bagel, Claus Gielisch, Dr. Felix Krämer, Harry Schmitz, Professor Dr. Jürgen Wilhelm

Background

The foundation was established in 2008, with a founding mission to preserve, present, study, and support the work of the international ZERO movement. The founding artists donated numerous works and their archives from the ZERO period, including photographs, correspondence, posters, invitations, press articles, and magazines. Additional works and documents were collected and shared through exhibitions and publications. These efforts include both the initial period (1958-1966) and the continuing impact of the work. The foundation's archive and library are available for research purposes. The living artists whose work it covers are actively involved in its work, an continue to share first-hand information about the ZERO era.

Other research

Visser went on to found the 0-Institute, focused on presenting the works and documents of international artists associated with ZERO, in a contemporary context.

Art market

In 2010, Sotheby's auctioned off part the collection of Gerhard and Anna Lenz in London. Initially valued at 12 million pounds ($19.5 million), the 49 paintings, drawings and low-relief panels made up from a variety of media were sold in an evening auction reaching £54.07 million, or about $84.5 million; unusual for a contemporary art sale, 74 of the 77 lots offered sold. Sarah Thornton (February 17, 2010)
Out from the ashes
'' The Economist''.

References

External links

Zero Foundation
website