Zero / Orez
The existence of a Dutch Zero group is shrouded in some initial confusion. Its founding ‘coincides’ with a visit to Rotterdam by Piero Manzoni. His arrival on 31 July 1958, for his first exhibition in the Netherlands, at Rotterdam’s Groot Handelsgebouw art centre, turns into a disappointment: Kees de Voogd, the art centre’s coordinator, decides Manzoni’s new white paintings are not good enough to be exhibited and tells Manzoni to reimburse the transport costs and find him- self another exhibition space.(1) After wandering around Rotterdam Manzoni ends up at the exhibition space of the Rotterdamse Kunstkring. Artist Gust Romijn is there and urges him to speak to the organizer in charge, Hans Sonnenberg. That same evening, Sonnenberg, Jan Schoonhoven, Gust Romijn and his wife Nelleke meet to discuss the idea of setting up an internationally oriented group. On Sunday 17 August, at Nelleke Romijn’s suggestion, this group is christened Zero. A month after Manzoni’s first visit to Rotterdam, Sonnenberg organizes an exhibition of the works the artist left behind, 17 in all, at the Rotterdamse Kunstkring. Illness pre- vents Manzoni from attending the opening, and the results are disappointing. Hoping to sell the works, Sonnenberg contacts Frits Becht, owner of the gallery De Posthoorn in The Hague, to set up a follow-up exhibition, but here too few sales are made. From Italy, however, where news has reached him of his purported success in the Netherlands, Manzoni insists he is determined to join the Zero group founded by Sonnenberg and to take part in the planned Zero exhibitions, starting on 1 July 1959 at the Rotterdamse Kunstkring, with subsequent openings at the Hessenhuis in Antwerp and the Galleria Appia Antica in Rome, where Manzoni him- self exhibited several months earlier. Shortly after the opening in Rotterdam, however, Sonnenberg receives an unsettling letter from the Düsseldorf-based Zero artists Heinz Mack and Otto Piene. They write that Manzoni has told them Sonnenberg has plans for further Zero activities.(2) In no un- certain terms, Mack and Piene state that Sonnenberg has been badly informed and call upon him, if he does not wish to be accused of plagiarism, to come up with another name for the group, since they have been working under the name Zero since 1958.
On 31 March 1960 Manzoni writes Sonnenberg that he has met a group of artists in Germany who have formed a group centred on a ZERO magazine. He feels very drawn to their ideas, he writes, because their theories are his: ‘I am by nature obliged to collaborate.’ Sonnenberg, however, manages to persuade Manzoni to remain a member of his group, which now goes by the name suggested by Jan Schoonhoven: OREZ (ZERO spelled backwards).(3)
Published by the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and NAi Publishers, Schiedam, 2011
On 31 March 1960 Manzoni writes Sonnenberg that he has met a group of artists in Germany who have formed a group centred on a ZERO magazine. He feels very drawn to their ideas, he writes, because their theories are his: ‘I am by nature obliged to collaborate.’ Sonnenberg, however, manages to persuade Manzoni to remain a member of his group, which now goes by the name suggested by Jan Schoonhoven: OREZ (ZERO spelled backwards).(3)
Published by the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and NAi Publishers, Schiedam, 2011
- Annotation, Hans Sonnenberg, Revue integration, no. 13/14, October 1972, Düsseldorf, ZERO Foundation archives.
- Letter from Heinz Mack to Hans Sonnenberg, 27 July 1959, Düsseldorf, ZERO Foun- dation, Heinz Mack archive.
- Jan Schoonhoven, annotation, July 1959, Düsseldorf, ZERO Foundation, Nanda Vigo archive.
Exhibitions
1958
- Rotterdam, Rotterdamse Kunstkring, ZERO, Kees van Bohemen, Karl Fred Dahmen, Piero Manzoni, Jan Pieters, Gust Romijn, Jan Sanders, Jan Schoonhoven, Emil Schumacher, Shinkichi Tajiri, Jaap Wagemaker
1959
- Rome, Galleria Appia Antica, Zero. Groupement International de l'Art d'Aujourd'hui, Kees van Bohemen, Karl Fred Dahmen, Piero Manzoni, Wim Motz, Jan Pieters, Jan Sanders, Jan Schoonhoven, Emil Schumacher, Shinkichi Tajiri, Jaap Wagemaker
- Antwerp, Hessenhuis, ZERO, Kees van Bohemen, Karl Fred Dahmen, Piero Manzoni, Jan Pieters, Gust Romijn, Jan Sanders, Jan Schoonhoven, Emil Schumacher, Shinkichi Tajiri, Jaap Wagemaker
1960
- The Hague, Internationale Galerij Orez ‘Openingstentoonstelling’, Kees van Bohemen, Daniel den Dikkenboer, Karl Fred Dahmen, Piero Manzoni, Wim Motz, Jan Pieters, A. Rooskens, Gust Romijn, Jan Sanders, Jan Schoonhoven, Emil Schumacher, Shinkichi Tajiri, Jaap Wagemaker, among others.
