1965: Zero on Sea, De Pier, Scheveningen, Netherlands
The 11th edition of TodaysArt .NL took place in at the Scheveningse Pier and its surroundings. During the weekend of 24-27th September 2015, The Pier was changed into an adventurous festival venue where many visual, performing arts and emerging cultures has been presented in forms of works, installations, performances and presentations.
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In July 1965, Dutch newspapers aired the first rumours about an unusual art manifestation on Scheveningen pier called ‘Zero on Sea’. It would launch on September 23d and last three weeks. ‘Zero on Sea’ was to be a huge artistic event with about 50 participating artists from over ten countries. These included Lucio Fontana from Milan, Yayoi Kusama and George Rickey from New York, Günther Uecker from Düsseldorf, Jiro Yoshihara from Tokyo, Walter Leblanc from Belgium, Pol Bury and Armand from France, Jesús Rafael Soto from Venezuela and of course the Dutch Nul group, consisting of Armando, Henk Peeters, Jan Henderikse and Jan Schoonhoven. It was to be a happening in which the public would play an active part: ‘For once, it doesn’t need to approach art in a breathless whisper.’ In true ZERO spirit, the plans involved all the elements. Yves Klein’s climate room was to be executed posthumously; a world premiere, the press boasted, which might stay forever in place. Yayoi Kusama wanted to decorate a 30-m-long corridor with her phallic objects, famous from the Nul65 Stedelijk Museum exhibition earlier that year. Armando ‘annexed’ the noises of the sea in order to amplify these and broadcast them all over the pier; also, he wished to ‘paint the sea black’, a reminiscence of his 1964 Black Water project. There were plans to launch ZERO fireworks, and to involve smell in some kind of way. The initiator of the project was Reinder Zwolsman and his Exploitatie Maatschappij Scheveningen (EMS), the owner of the pier, who needed some publicity. In early 1965 the EMS got in touch with Leo Verboon of Internationale Gallerij OREZ, and a deal was struck. OREZ was an avant-garde gallery that specialized in the latest trends in the arts. The name was the reverse of ZERO (Nul, in Dutch), the art movement the gallery represented. As of 1964, OREZ was run by Albert Vogel en Leo Verboon, a flamboyant couple that turned OREZ into ‘one of the best, perhaps the very best’ gallery of the country at the time.4 In collaboration with Henk Peeters, the ‘Zero on Sea’ plan was developed. Initially, the organizers estimated the costs at no more than 100,000 guilders. Half of that sum would be provided by EMS. Companies that produced materials with which ZERO artists liked to work were to sponsor the remainder. Five thousand visitors daily were expected. The EMS starting capital allowed Vogel and Verboon to go on a threeweek trip around the world in order to collect ideas. The trip led from Bangkok, Hong Kong, Formosa, Taiwan, Tokyo, via Hawaii to San Francisco and New York. Unfortunately, ‘Zero on Sea’ was never realized. From the start, it was questionable whether the highflying constructions of the international ZERO artists would be able to withstand the harsh Dutch climate; in early April 1966, when the manifestation eventually was meant to take place, storms ravaged the North Sea coast. No insurance against possible claims in case of damage could be obtained. But Verboon mentioned another reason: When we had collected all those plans, we started to calculate: the whole affair was going to cost several hundred thousand guilders. And Zwolsman was much more bankrupt than he realized, at that moment in time, so all we got out of him was a tiny amount of money. He was only too right: in 1966, the EMS paid its shareholders dividend for the last time. As off then, Zwolsman’s imperium went downhill. A letter from Leo Verboon to Yayoi Kusama (which must, presumably, in some variation have been sent to artists around the world) explained all the reasons for cancellation, adding the fact that some projects were extremely expensive to set up, and would require a disproportional part of the budget. In April 1966, the plans for ‘Zero on Sea’ were exhibited in OREZ. The following year architecture magazine Forum published a selection of the designs. In 1970, the Amsterdam Art Historical Institute mounted an exhibition on the project, curated by Franck Gribling. The accompanying catalogue was, up till now, the major guide to ‘Zero on Sea’. One year later, the Internationale Gallerij OREZ ceased to exist. In the ensuing division of spoils, Vogel received the ten files with the original designs for ‘Zero on Sea’.
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Images: Haags Gemeente Archief, Archief A. Vogel
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