The Development of the Group "Zero"
Group Zero is not a group in a definitely organized way. When in the middle of the fifties the activity of the younger artists in Dusseldorf increased more and more, no gallery proved to be willing or able to take real interest in their work and imagination. The result was that some artists found a solution of their practical problems in organizing what we called "night exhibitions," which consisted only of a vernissage at night without the exhibition lasting any longer.
The first exhibition which followed a certain theme was the seventh night exhibition, entitled "The Red Painting" (paintings the dominating color of which is red). Encouraged by the publicity which the previous events had raised, we (Mack and 1) published a catalog-magazine called ZERO 1 (April 1958). It contained articles written by some critics and statements of the artists who took part in the exhibition. The main tendency was the purification of color as opposed to the informel and neo-expressionism; the peaceful conquest of the soul by means of calm, serene sensibilization. The leading articles in the catalog came from Yves Klein, Heinz Mack, and myself. Yves wrote on his monochrome painting, Mack on vibration, and my statement was concerned with the value of color as light articulation.
The title ZERO was the result of months of search and was finally found more or less by chance. From the beginning we looked upon the term not as an expression of nihilism - or a dada-like gag, but as a word indicating a zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning as at the count-down when rockets take off - zero is the incommensurable zone in which the old state turns into the new.
More important than ZERO 1 may have been ZERO 2 (October 1958). It was published on the occasion of the eighth night exhibition under the title "Vibration." The show consisted of the works of five artists, mainly devoted to visual movement: Holweck, Mack, Mavignier, Piene, and Zillmann. In ZERO 2 the statements of Mack and myself have the serious character of manifestos, Mack's concern with "quiet and unquiet" and mine with "lightlight." The article of the theorist Fritz Seitz was a profound introduction to our problems.
The first reason something like a group formed was the integration of artistic imagination of individual artists from different parts of Germany (and - after some time - from all over the world) who, after having met, became friends. Another reason was my friendship with Mack and our human and artistic common interests which became apparent in his vibrations and my light-pattern paintings. After the vibration exhibition we met many artists who intended things related to our work. Most important proved to be our contact with Lucio Fontana, whom we looked upon, since our first personal meetings, as something like a spiritual father, although he did not infJuence us directly.
I met Fontana for the first time in 1961. But Mack had often seen him before, introduced by Piero Manzoni, who since 1959 had established many contacts between artists in different countries, especially between Milan and Dusseldorf.
While Fontana's encouragement to us was mainly a human impulse, another "temptation" came from Max Bill, who in 1960 included us in his show "konkrete kunst." But most of us (except Mavignier who had been Bill's student) succeeded in remaining on our feet as artists who do not want their spirit (and sensation) to be overwhelmed by the mind or even by intellectual visual research. One of our most important aims proved to be the attempt to reharmonize the relationship between man and nature - nature offers enormous impulses, from the elements: the sky, the sea, the Arctic, the desert, air, light, water, fire as means of expression and formnot putting the artist into the position of a fugitive from the "modern world" but rather having the artist use the tools of actual technical invention as well as those of nature.
The relationship nature/man/technology was one of the leading subjects of ZERO 3, published in July 1961. It was devoted to about 20 artists: the hommage a Fontana and the statements of Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, Spoerri, Mack, and myself may have been most influential.
Yves Klein has perhaps been the real motor in provoking a Zero movement. His personal influence as our friend and his artistic power may have set loose our activity in 1957 toward Zero, even if our individual tendency to see light and visual movement as vibration and the struggle between light and darkness had only a loose connection with his ambitions. His influence, however, came from his personal genius and his universal attitude toward purification.
Perhaps the most important Zero exhibition took place at the Hessenhuis in Antwerp in March 1959. It was organized by Pol Bury;Paul van Hoeydonck, and Jean Tinguely, assisted by Daniel Spoerri. The exhibition had no title, but the theme of the catalog was the Moholy term "vision in motion - motion in vision." Some of the participants were Bury, van Hoeydonck, Yves Klein, Mack, Munari, Piene, Uecker, Soto, Tinguely. In July 1959 I organized, together with Mack, another exhibition of that type in Wiesbaden, entitled "dynamo 1." It opened the night before the start of documenta II and became the first of our exhibitions in Germany which stirred the common feeling on tachism and the like and gave an impression of the possibility for harmony between sensibility and mental control (or even identity in them).
Since the beginning of 1959, Mack and I had repeated meetings with Jean Tinguely, whose rousing talks encouraged our activities and gave us the impulse to motorize our light objects. From 1959 on we worked toward the compilation and publication of ZERO 3. After it came out ("ZERO edition exposition demonstration," Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf, July 1961), an ever increasing number of Zero "happenings" and exhibitions took place, mostly organized by Mack and myself; sometimes in Italy by Manzoni and Castellani; or in Holland (as of 1961 the Dutch Informel group changed its direction and approached Zero), by Peeters and Armando (who in 1962 fixed a new name for their group - "nul" (Zero) - and settled spiritually in our neighborhood). Peeters was one of the organizers of the "Nul" exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam in March 1962.
About 1960, two tendencies within the spirit of the artists who had taken part or had been interested in Zero events developed clearly: the idealistic (occasionally romantic) trend, willing to provoke an alteration of objects and man from dark to bright (later on emphasized in ZERO, THE NEW IDEALISM, the manifesto of Mack, Piene, Uecker in Berlin and Brussels) - and the new realism (Nouveau realisme) of the late Yves Klein, Tinguely, Arman, Spoerri - in some ways parallel to pop art in America.
By that time (about 1961/62), many other groups were founded, especially in Europe, which felt either attraction to or love-hate for Zero, such as the Yugoslav group in Zagreb, gruppo t and gruppo n in Milan and Padua, the "groupe des recherches d'art visuel" in Paris (which also comes from the Vasarely line), the "academic kineticists" in Munich (with their ambitious foreman von Graevenitz), Nouvelles tendances, the "kinetic center" of Medalla and Salvadori in London.
Since the end of 1961, Uecker began to work closely with Mack and myself, and in 1962 we did our first collaboration: the salon de lumiere in the Stedelijk Museum. Since that time, in addition to Zero exhibitions at various places, we have had several exhibitions together: in Brussels (Palais des Beaux Arts); in Krefeld (Museum Haus Lange); in Berlin; in the Hague (Gemeentemuseum); in London (McRoberts and Tunnard); at documenta III. Mack's and Uecker's work today is more concerned with light itself, while I try to penetrate darkness by means of smoke and fire on the one hand and projectors on the other. While Mack longs to alter vast landscapes, I try to influence the "human landscape" by the Light Ballet and my plays.
Mack, Uecker, and I now form, let's say, the "inner circle" of Zero (which, I repeat, is not a group in a definitely organized way). There is no president, no leader, no secretary; there are no "members," there is only a human relationship among several artists and an artistic relationship among different individuals. The partners in Zero exhibitions are always changing. There is no obligation to take part, no "should" or "must" (one of the reasons, I think, why Zero is still growing). We are fond of collaborating and occasionally doing teamwork (Mack, Piene, Uecker: "Light Mills"), but we are at the same time convinced that teamwork is nonsense if it tries to be an alternative to or rules out individuality or personal sensibility. For me the essence of teamwork is the chance for a synthesis of different personal ideas. This synthesis might be richer than the few ideas which a single artist usually is able to investigate.
We try to remain faithful to our concept of giving more beauty to "the world" without killing our spirit by the fixed terms of a program and believing that we might be the alpha and the omega. We try to work in our Zero zone and at the same time to remain open to the zero zones which "the world," man, and nature offer us in permanence.
Otto Piene, The Times Literary Supplement, London, September 3, 1964.
The first exhibition which followed a certain theme was the seventh night exhibition, entitled "The Red Painting" (paintings the dominating color of which is red). Encouraged by the publicity which the previous events had raised, we (Mack and 1) published a catalog-magazine called ZERO 1 (April 1958). It contained articles written by some critics and statements of the artists who took part in the exhibition. The main tendency was the purification of color as opposed to the informel and neo-expressionism; the peaceful conquest of the soul by means of calm, serene sensibilization. The leading articles in the catalog came from Yves Klein, Heinz Mack, and myself. Yves wrote on his monochrome painting, Mack on vibration, and my statement was concerned with the value of color as light articulation.
The title ZERO was the result of months of search and was finally found more or less by chance. From the beginning we looked upon the term not as an expression of nihilism - or a dada-like gag, but as a word indicating a zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning as at the count-down when rockets take off - zero is the incommensurable zone in which the old state turns into the new.
More important than ZERO 1 may have been ZERO 2 (October 1958). It was published on the occasion of the eighth night exhibition under the title "Vibration." The show consisted of the works of five artists, mainly devoted to visual movement: Holweck, Mack, Mavignier, Piene, and Zillmann. In ZERO 2 the statements of Mack and myself have the serious character of manifestos, Mack's concern with "quiet and unquiet" and mine with "lightlight." The article of the theorist Fritz Seitz was a profound introduction to our problems.
The first reason something like a group formed was the integration of artistic imagination of individual artists from different parts of Germany (and - after some time - from all over the world) who, after having met, became friends. Another reason was my friendship with Mack and our human and artistic common interests which became apparent in his vibrations and my light-pattern paintings. After the vibration exhibition we met many artists who intended things related to our work. Most important proved to be our contact with Lucio Fontana, whom we looked upon, since our first personal meetings, as something like a spiritual father, although he did not infJuence us directly.
I met Fontana for the first time in 1961. But Mack had often seen him before, introduced by Piero Manzoni, who since 1959 had established many contacts between artists in different countries, especially between Milan and Dusseldorf.
While Fontana's encouragement to us was mainly a human impulse, another "temptation" came from Max Bill, who in 1960 included us in his show "konkrete kunst." But most of us (except Mavignier who had been Bill's student) succeeded in remaining on our feet as artists who do not want their spirit (and sensation) to be overwhelmed by the mind or even by intellectual visual research. One of our most important aims proved to be the attempt to reharmonize the relationship between man and nature - nature offers enormous impulses, from the elements: the sky, the sea, the Arctic, the desert, air, light, water, fire as means of expression and formnot putting the artist into the position of a fugitive from the "modern world" but rather having the artist use the tools of actual technical invention as well as those of nature.
The relationship nature/man/technology was one of the leading subjects of ZERO 3, published in July 1961. It was devoted to about 20 artists: the hommage a Fontana and the statements of Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, Spoerri, Mack, and myself may have been most influential.
Yves Klein has perhaps been the real motor in provoking a Zero movement. His personal influence as our friend and his artistic power may have set loose our activity in 1957 toward Zero, even if our individual tendency to see light and visual movement as vibration and the struggle between light and darkness had only a loose connection with his ambitions. His influence, however, came from his personal genius and his universal attitude toward purification.
Perhaps the most important Zero exhibition took place at the Hessenhuis in Antwerp in March 1959. It was organized by Pol Bury;Paul van Hoeydonck, and Jean Tinguely, assisted by Daniel Spoerri. The exhibition had no title, but the theme of the catalog was the Moholy term "vision in motion - motion in vision." Some of the participants were Bury, van Hoeydonck, Yves Klein, Mack, Munari, Piene, Uecker, Soto, Tinguely. In July 1959 I organized, together with Mack, another exhibition of that type in Wiesbaden, entitled "dynamo 1." It opened the night before the start of documenta II and became the first of our exhibitions in Germany which stirred the common feeling on tachism and the like and gave an impression of the possibility for harmony between sensibility and mental control (or even identity in them).
Since the beginning of 1959, Mack and I had repeated meetings with Jean Tinguely, whose rousing talks encouraged our activities and gave us the impulse to motorize our light objects. From 1959 on we worked toward the compilation and publication of ZERO 3. After it came out ("ZERO edition exposition demonstration," Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf, July 1961), an ever increasing number of Zero "happenings" and exhibitions took place, mostly organized by Mack and myself; sometimes in Italy by Manzoni and Castellani; or in Holland (as of 1961 the Dutch Informel group changed its direction and approached Zero), by Peeters and Armando (who in 1962 fixed a new name for their group - "nul" (Zero) - and settled spiritually in our neighborhood). Peeters was one of the organizers of the "Nul" exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam in March 1962.
About 1960, two tendencies within the spirit of the artists who had taken part or had been interested in Zero events developed clearly: the idealistic (occasionally romantic) trend, willing to provoke an alteration of objects and man from dark to bright (later on emphasized in ZERO, THE NEW IDEALISM, the manifesto of Mack, Piene, Uecker in Berlin and Brussels) - and the new realism (Nouveau realisme) of the late Yves Klein, Tinguely, Arman, Spoerri - in some ways parallel to pop art in America.
By that time (about 1961/62), many other groups were founded, especially in Europe, which felt either attraction to or love-hate for Zero, such as the Yugoslav group in Zagreb, gruppo t and gruppo n in Milan and Padua, the "groupe des recherches d'art visuel" in Paris (which also comes from the Vasarely line), the "academic kineticists" in Munich (with their ambitious foreman von Graevenitz), Nouvelles tendances, the "kinetic center" of Medalla and Salvadori in London.
Since the end of 1961, Uecker began to work closely with Mack and myself, and in 1962 we did our first collaboration: the salon de lumiere in the Stedelijk Museum. Since that time, in addition to Zero exhibitions at various places, we have had several exhibitions together: in Brussels (Palais des Beaux Arts); in Krefeld (Museum Haus Lange); in Berlin; in the Hague (Gemeentemuseum); in London (McRoberts and Tunnard); at documenta III. Mack's and Uecker's work today is more concerned with light itself, while I try to penetrate darkness by means of smoke and fire on the one hand and projectors on the other. While Mack longs to alter vast landscapes, I try to influence the "human landscape" by the Light Ballet and my plays.
Mack, Uecker, and I now form, let's say, the "inner circle" of Zero (which, I repeat, is not a group in a definitely organized way). There is no president, no leader, no secretary; there are no "members," there is only a human relationship among several artists and an artistic relationship among different individuals. The partners in Zero exhibitions are always changing. There is no obligation to take part, no "should" or "must" (one of the reasons, I think, why Zero is still growing). We are fond of collaborating and occasionally doing teamwork (Mack, Piene, Uecker: "Light Mills"), but we are at the same time convinced that teamwork is nonsense if it tries to be an alternative to or rules out individuality or personal sensibility. For me the essence of teamwork is the chance for a synthesis of different personal ideas. This synthesis might be richer than the few ideas which a single artist usually is able to investigate.
We try to remain faithful to our concept of giving more beauty to "the world" without killing our spirit by the fixed terms of a program and believing that we might be the alpha and the omega. We try to work in our Zero zone and at the same time to remain open to the zero zones which "the world," man, and nature offer us in permanence.
Otto Piene, The Times Literary Supplement, London, September 3, 1964.
