Group ZERO
‚Let us explore the stars‘

Amsterdam

‘Let us explore the stars’ is Stedelijk new exhibition featuring the major characters and components of art collective, group ZERO. The group is derived from the art revue created in 1958 by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene with the ground to generate a new, post-war artistic scene. Along with Günther Uecker they created the ‘one night exhibition’ considered as the foundational act of a group that will grew up on an international scale.

In France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and in the United States, other artists quickly joined the Dusseldorf trio on their new optimistic kind of art. Light and dynamic are the two main components of the group ZERO’s aesthetic. Screens, projections are some of the inventions brought about by the ZERO movement which name alludes to the will to start from scratch, putting aside the guiltiness of the past. The idea of dynamism and light are the common thread for most of the artists who lately joined the movement. Jean Tinguely, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Yayoi Kusama, Piero Manzoni are some of the head figures of the group ZERO with their minimal pieces that tend to redefine painting’s aim or the plethora of material integrated on their artworks – highly discernible with Tinguely’s machines- interrogating what art is really about.

In 1962, at the really beginning of the emergence of the ZERO movement, the Stedelijk Museum already offered a platform for the artists of the group. Again in 1965, the museum displayed an overview of the works produced until then. It is therefore a logical consequence that the museum, presents a retrospective another fifty years later.

Illustration from ZERO Vol. 3, 1961. Design by Heinz Mack

Otto Piene, Venus von Willendorf, 1963, oil on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum

July 4 – November 8, 2015

Museumplein 10
1071 DJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands

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