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Project with and around the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama as member of the international ZERO movementTitle: With Love From Holland
Curator: Mattijs Visser Venue: Hegius-gebouw, Deventer Period: part 1 Autumn 2020, part 2 Winter 2021, part 3 Summer 2021. Organisor: European Institute for Contemporary Art and Science / 0-INSTITUTE Collaboration: Flemish Centrum Artist Archives Antwerp (CKV), State Artist Archives The Hague (RKD), ZERO foundation, Estate Orez Galerie The Hague, Museum Boymans van Beuningen Rotterdam |
Yayoi Kusama’s artistic practice from the late 1950s to the 1960s, the time she was in New York, has been frequently introduced through many exhibitions all over the world. However, it has not been emphasized by now, that her works of that time were exhibited in Holland even more frequently than in New York.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, a group of young German and Dutch artists took it upon themselves to leave the past behind and create a new artistic beginning. Beginning with Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, they took the name ZERO in 1958, as Piero Manzoni and Jan Schoonhoven did in the same year in Holland. Followed by Henk Peeters and Armando, who took the Dutch word for zero NUL in 1961.
In just five short years they and their European network created an avant-garde movement that remains a unique influence and inspiration in contemporary art. Yayoi Kusama work has been shown in various contexts, but that she was an important figure for the European ZERO artists has not been emphasized by now, not in the USA, not in Holland, nor in Japan.
The ZERO artists were reacting against post-war abstract expressionism— or art informel in Japan and Europe—with its strong color, subjectivity, and emotion. In Piene’s words, Zero could be instead a ‘zone of silence and of pure possibilities.’ Their interests were fast cars and space travel; one Europe and one universe; science and mechanics; new industrial materials; networks, the masses, the media; and art’s place outside museum walls.
The confluent relationship between Kusama’s works of the 60s and the international ZERO movements can be claimed with such common elements as the exploration of monochrome, the use of daily materials like mirrors, and the repetition of single motif, and the tactility of the body. In the meantime, they have different characteristics in their arts: the ZERO artists pursued ‘that the artwork does not refer to anything, but the artwork itself.’ On the other hand, the core of Kusama’s practices is based on ‘herself,’ by utilizing the performativity of her physical body.
This exhibition, titled “With Love From Holland,” will feature, for the first time in the Netherlands, Kusama’s activities in the Netherlands, and introduce the relationship between her practice and that from the International ZERO movement. The exhibition will include paintings, sculptures, installations, not only by Kusama but also by her close Dutch, Swiss and German friends Jan Schoonhoven, Henk Peeters, Christian Megert, Gunther Uecker, Otto Piene.
Since 2005, the Nul Archive and the ZERO foundation have been collecting archival material from all over the world. Recent discoveries, more than 200 unpublished foto’s from Kusama her activities in Holland and abroad by Dutch and Belgium photographers, as well as private collectors opening their collections with never shown Kusama works, and a new generation of art historians “discovering” the importance from Kusama for the international ZERO network, are the reason to organise an exhibition around Kusama.
Therefore the exhibition will be held in three parts, by autumn 2020 the 0-INSTITUTE will show unknown photos by Raoul van den Boom, Harrie Verstappen, and Theo van Houts. Followed by an exhibition over five rooms with early works by Yayoi Kusama: early net-paintings, spaghetti and phallic objects, a reconstruction of a mirror room, polka-dot mannequins, and the installation narcis garden. The exhibition will be completed by several unknown videos and documents. As third part works by the artists from the international ZERO movement will echo the works, installations and performances by Kusama.
As the exhibition is the first in the Netherlands focussing on Kusama her activities in Holland, the 0-INSTITUTE will publish a book with essays by Antoon Meelissen about Kusamas' connection with the international ZERO network, an essay by Niels Van Manen on Kusama’s exhibitions in Holland, and by Margriet Schavemaker on the performative activities, in Holland and New York and by Caroline de Westenholz about Kusamas' Dutch gallery Orez.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, a group of young German and Dutch artists took it upon themselves to leave the past behind and create a new artistic beginning. Beginning with Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, they took the name ZERO in 1958, as Piero Manzoni and Jan Schoonhoven did in the same year in Holland. Followed by Henk Peeters and Armando, who took the Dutch word for zero NUL in 1961.
In just five short years they and their European network created an avant-garde movement that remains a unique influence and inspiration in contemporary art. Yayoi Kusama work has been shown in various contexts, but that she was an important figure for the European ZERO artists has not been emphasized by now, not in the USA, not in Holland, nor in Japan.
The ZERO artists were reacting against post-war abstract expressionism— or art informel in Japan and Europe—with its strong color, subjectivity, and emotion. In Piene’s words, Zero could be instead a ‘zone of silence and of pure possibilities.’ Their interests were fast cars and space travel; one Europe and one universe; science and mechanics; new industrial materials; networks, the masses, the media; and art’s place outside museum walls.
The confluent relationship between Kusama’s works of the 60s and the international ZERO movements can be claimed with such common elements as the exploration of monochrome, the use of daily materials like mirrors, and the repetition of single motif, and the tactility of the body. In the meantime, they have different characteristics in their arts: the ZERO artists pursued ‘that the artwork does not refer to anything, but the artwork itself.’ On the other hand, the core of Kusama’s practices is based on ‘herself,’ by utilizing the performativity of her physical body.
This exhibition, titled “With Love From Holland,” will feature, for the first time in the Netherlands, Kusama’s activities in the Netherlands, and introduce the relationship between her practice and that from the International ZERO movement. The exhibition will include paintings, sculptures, installations, not only by Kusama but also by her close Dutch, Swiss and German friends Jan Schoonhoven, Henk Peeters, Christian Megert, Gunther Uecker, Otto Piene.
Since 2005, the Nul Archive and the ZERO foundation have been collecting archival material from all over the world. Recent discoveries, more than 200 unpublished foto’s from Kusama her activities in Holland and abroad by Dutch and Belgium photographers, as well as private collectors opening their collections with never shown Kusama works, and a new generation of art historians “discovering” the importance from Kusama for the international ZERO network, are the reason to organise an exhibition around Kusama.
Therefore the exhibition will be held in three parts, by autumn 2020 the 0-INSTITUTE will show unknown photos by Raoul van den Boom, Harrie Verstappen, and Theo van Houts. Followed by an exhibition over five rooms with early works by Yayoi Kusama: early net-paintings, spaghetti and phallic objects, a reconstruction of a mirror room, polka-dot mannequins, and the installation narcis garden. The exhibition will be completed by several unknown videos and documents. As third part works by the artists from the international ZERO movement will echo the works, installations and performances by Kusama.
As the exhibition is the first in the Netherlands focussing on Kusama her activities in Holland, the 0-INSTITUTE will publish a book with essays by Antoon Meelissen about Kusamas' connection with the international ZERO network, an essay by Niels Van Manen on Kusama’s exhibitions in Holland, and by Margriet Schavemaker on the performative activities, in Holland and New York and by Caroline de Westenholz about Kusamas' Dutch gallery Orez.