SAVE THE DATE: SEPTEMBER 10-19, 2010

Below Zero
Light Lab with Mischa Kuball, Tobias Daemgen, Moritz Ellerich und Julius Schmiedel
Performance by PYROLATOR September 10 and 18, 2010
KAI 10 | RAUM FÜR KUNST, DÜSSELDORF

SAVE THE DATE: SEPTEMBER 18, 2010, 19 - 2 Uhr

Light in Darkness
Discussions, Lectures, Performances with Daniel Birnbaum,
Olafur Eliasson, Elizabeth Goldring, Heinz Mack, Roger Malina,
Otto Piene, Günther Uecker, Robert Wilson, Semir Zeki
ZERO FOUNDATION, DÜSSELDORF
program (german)
program (engl.)

SAVE THE DATE: SEPTEMBER 11, 2010, to JANUARY 16, 2011

Jef Verheyen and friends
Exhibition with works by Lucio Fontana, Hermann Goepfert, Yves
Klein, Heinz Mack, Christian Megert, Günther Uecker etc.
LANGEN FOUNDATION, NEUSS

2010-06-01
The Leopold-Hoesch-Museum in Düren will reopen on June 27th 2010 after reconstructing the building. They will be showing works from the Hubertus Schoeller Stiftung from the ZERO period including a Light  Ballet by Otto Piene.

2010-15-05
On the initiativ of the Zero foundation the Cragg Foundation will organize an exhibition with works by Jean Tinguely at the Skulpturengarten Waldfrieden in Wuppertal in cooperation with the Tinguely-Museum Basel. The show will include a work from the last cooperation between Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein.

2009-12-05
The ZERO foundations collection was expanded by works from the artists Herman de Vries, Walter Leblanc and Otto Piene. We would like to thank our donators!

2010-04-01
As part of the 2010 Quadriennale the Langen Foundation in cooperation with the ZERO foundation and the Vervoordt Foundation is showing an exhibition of the work of the Belgian ZERO artist and painter Jef Verheyen (1932-84). His oeuvre will be seen in the context of works by his friends and as part of the 'Light in Darkness' project. (11 September 2010 to 16 January 2011). 

2009-03-15
The ZERO foundation will be partner of the Quadriennale 2010. The foundation is mounting a discursed-based art event entitled Light in Darkness. It will take place in Düsseldorfs Media Harbour on the evening of the 18th september 2010. The event will comprise debates, lectures, performances on the theming of 'Light in Art'. [press information]

2010-01-15
A circle of friends - the association “Freunde der ZERO foundation Düsseldorf e.V. “ - has been successfully founded in presence of the Zero initiators Heinz Mack und Otto Piene, representatives of the politics and artists, art collectors and gallerists.

2009-10-31
For the exhibition series SPOT ON a publication is published by museum kunst palast in collaboration with the ZERO foundation on the history of the installation Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana), 1964, by Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker.

2009-07-19
The Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam (NL) is preparing a survey on ZERO international with the Dutch NUL group as starting point. The exhibition will be prepared in close collaboration with the ZERO foundation and is planned to open in September 2011.

2009-06-07
The Biennale di Venezia, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, will show works by the Japanese artist group Gutai. Several works, donated by the artists Shozo Shimamoto and Saburo Murakami, are in the collection of the ZERO foundation.

2009-03-15
The work Cronotopo (1963) by the Italian artist Nanda Vigo will be acquired by the ZERO foundation from the proceeds of the auction of the ZERO Edition in April last year. The Milan-based artist exhibited with many ZERO protagonists and in 1965 organised the exhibition ZERO avantgarde in Lucio Fontana's studio. Cronotopo is one of her last remaining ZERO works.

2009-02-01
The ZERO foundation has opened its space next to the Düsseldorf harbour and houses the archives of Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker, with photographic documentation, publications, videos, and other historical documents.

In 1958, at their studio at Gladbacher Strasse in Düsseldorf, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene founded ZERO. In 1961, Günther Uecker joined the group; and in 1966, ZERO disbanded.

ZERO designates a new beginning in artistic and historical terms to leave received principles of art behind. In the 1950s, still in the wake of the oppressive experiences of wartime and in distinction from the gestural painting of Europe’s brand of abstract expressionism, art informel, ZERO consciously elaborated a monochrome pictorial language suffused with light.

Pure colour or pure light as an epitome of cosmic powers becomes a synonym for the liberation of the individual. A third factor to open wide new horizons and to prompt experiments with new materials consisted of the new technological achievements. From now, light and movement are the central point of their art. Together with groupings of artists forming concurrently and with other, individually working artists in Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, ZERO revolutionised post-war art far beyond Europe’s limits with their new grammar of form and image.

What had begun in Düsseldorf would develop in less than a decade into one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. To this day the formal vocabulary of ZERO has lost nothing of its initial power and continues to be a point of reference for successive generations of artists.

What had begun in Düsseldorf would develop in less than a decade into one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. To this day, more than fifty years after the group’s foundation, the formal vocabulary of ZERO has lost nothing of its initial power and continues to be a point of reference for successive generations of artists.

After more than half a century of ZERO, the group and its wider circle are once again becoming a centre of public attention, this time in the shape of a foundation. The idea of preserving, presenting, researching and furthering this movement by establishing a ZERO foundation arose on the occasion of the internationally oriented ZERO. Internationale Künstler-Avantgarde der 50er/60er Jahre retrospective mounted at Düsseldorf's museum kunst palast in 2006.

It was only logical and consistent that the foundation should be located in the city where the movement first took off.

In December, 2008, the ZERO foundation was established, a collaboration between the Düsseldorf ZERO artists Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker, with the museum kunst palast foundation and financial aid from the City of Düsseldorf.

The idea of preserving, presenting, researching and furthering this movement by establishing a ZERO foundation arose on the occasion of the internationally oriented ZERO. Internationale Künstler-Avantgarde der 50er/60er Jahre retrospective mounted at Düsseldorf's museum kunst palast in 2006.

The artists donated forty works as well as their archives from the days of ZERO, with important records such as photographs, correspondence and exhibition invitations and reviews. In the coming years, further works and documents of the times are to be gathered and made accessible to a wide public and to international research with the help of loans, co-operative projects and the development of exhibition projects and publications. These are to cover not only the ZERO period proper, but also the history of its influences through to the present day.

It is the good fortune of the foundation ­ and as good as unique ­ that the artists are able to bring their own commitment to it. Thus scholarly research and consolidation will profit directly from their first-hand information on the ZERO period.

The ZERO foundation has set itself the task of researching, preserving and presenting the works and documents of ZERO and, as a centre of scholarly investigation, is actively committed to reappraising the ZERO period.
The gifts of the founding members, Otto Piene, Heinz Mack and Günther Uecker, in the shape of works and records from the time of the movement, form the backbone of the collection and the work of the foundation. The ZERO foundation will be expanding its library and the archive continually, for example in receiving further artists’ archives and estates from the ZERO circle, or by collaborating with archives internationally.
The collection itself is also to be extended by donations in future, be it in co-operation with collectors and artists or by the accession of legacies. Several donors and patrons have already enlarged both the collection and the archive at the ZERO foundation decisively. Co-operation with international museums will offer the ZERO foundation the prospect of placing works at the disposal of renowned collections as permanent loans.
Among the manifold activities of the ZERO foundation in its international outlook are ZERO exhibitions in Germany and abroad. The next few years will see the foundation collaborate closely with renowned museums in realising exhibition projects and standing by with support for the content of the respective show. Findings of scholarly research will be published in catalogue contributions.

It is also a declared aim of the ZERO foundation to promote an interdisciplinary exchange between artists, scholars in the humanities and the sciences and protagonists of the performing arts, across generations. The ZERO foundation will support this by realising projects of its own, such as symposia, exhibitions and performances reflecting aspects of the ZERO period.

In the research sphere, the comprehensive artist archives will be studied over the next few years, recorded, digitised and evaluated according to their content regarding featured themes such as the connections of Düsseldorf ZERO to the Netherlands or to Italy. The results will be presented in publications, either in exhibition catalogues or publications in their own right.

A wide-ranging compendium of the ZERO period is being planned in which the movement’s protagonists and their circles, exhibitions, actions and utopian projects, detailed visual material - including matter only newly come to light - and core source texts, will be gathered  and, with the collaboration of international scholars, placed in their historical context.

The Archive and the ZERO Library are in the process of being compiled and are open to researchers by appointment.

Together with the museum kunst palast, the ZERO foundation has important works in the collection from the following artists:

Hermann Bartels, Pol Bury, Enrico Castellani, Lucio Fontana, Hermann Goepfert, Kuno Gonschior, Gerard von Graevenitz, Gotthard Graubner, Hans Haacke, Oskar Holweck, Akira Kanayama, Yves Klein, Walter Leblanc, Adolf Luther, Heinz Mack, Piero Manzoni, Almir Mavignier, Christian Megert, Sadamasa Motonaga, Saburo Murakami, Henk Peeters, Otto Piene, Uli Pohl, Arnulf Rainer, Hans Salentin, Jan Schoonhoven, Shozo Shimamoto, Jesus Rafael Soto, Daniel Spoerri, Atsuko Tanaka, Jean Tinguely, Günther Uecker, Jef Verheyen, Nanda Vigo, Herman de Vries

A circle of Friends of ZERO  - the association "Freunde der ZERO foundation Düsseldorf e.V." - has been successfully founded in January 2010. Already over 50 active members are registered. They will be supporting the foundation’s activities.

By establishing the circle of friends, the Foundation aspires to bring together people who have that same passion in common – a passion for the ZERO period and its art. Members of this association will be able to become actively involved. For how could a foundation’s work succeed without committed friends?

Members will be able to attend exclusive events such as previews and visits to artist studios and collectors and to join outings to notable exhibitions at museums in Germany and its neighbours, with exclusive guided tours of the exhibitions and museum collections.

Opportunities will be offered to make personal acquaintances, for example in meeting artists, collectors and curators in personal. Friends and Patrons will receive advance notice of our planned projects and exhibitions; they will receive the regular ZERO journal and can purchase exhibition catalogues at special prices.

By purchases the Friends and Patrons can acquire significant works of the ZERO period. Thus, by way of permanent loans to the ZERO foundation, the ZERO Collection can be augmented by key works.

ZERO in NY
Exhibition catalog edited by Mattijs Visser, with essays by Yves Klein, Otto, Piene, Heinz Mack, Valerie Hillings, Catherine Millet, Heike van den Valentyn, published by the ZERO foundation/Sperone Westwater, New York/Düsseldorf 2008, ISBN 978-90-76979-73-1

ZERO – Internationale Künstler-Avantgarde der 50er/60er Jahre
With essay from Bazon Brock, Tiziana Caianiello, Heinz-Norbert Jocks, Catherine Millet, Lóránd Hegyi, Valerie L. Hillings, Heike van den Valentyn, Atsuo Yamamoto, Mattijs Visser, published by Museum Kunst Palast/Hatje Cantz, Düsseldorf/Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 978-3-7757-1747-2

Der Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana) von Heinz Mack, Günther Uecker und Otto Piene
Exhibition catalog edited by Heike van den Valentyn, with an essay by Daniel Birnbaum and an interview by Dr. Tiziana Caianiello, published by museum kunst palast/ZERO foundation, Düsseldorf 2009