New Zero

From the collection
Castellani, Geiger, Mavignier, Megert, Morellet, Yvarall
New acquisitions I
Dadamaino, Hendrikse, Peeters, Raysse, Soto, Tinguely, Verheyen
New acquisitions II
Fleury, Reiter Raabe, Westerwinter, Zobernig
Special exhibition
Piero Manzoni, John Nixon:
Die Werke aus Herning / DK

Daimler Contemporary

7 April to 10 June 2001


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Programme of the Year

	Henk Peeters White Feathers on White, 1962
	Martial Raysse Peinture lumière, o.J. (ca. 1965)
	Jean Tinguely Do-it-yourself-sculpture, 1961
	Jesus Rafael Soto Vibration, 1962
	Jef Verheyen Espace (grün). 1963

ZERO - in post-European art this means the countdown to a new sense of being close to life, enthusiastic about technology and delighting in experimentation. The name is a paradigm for the vanquishing of Cubism, Constructivism, Abstract Expressionism, Action Painting etc. and for a successful attempt to put teamwork from a community of artists in a state of dynamic change in place of stylistic categories that had become anaemic.

The artists in the international Zero movement each developed individual work concepts and production strategies, but at the same time agreed in their basic tenets: monochromy and seriality, light and movement, developing works for rooms, squares and cities, establishing a new unity for nature, people and technology. Artistic concepts and attitudes crystallized around the Zero avant-garde: these were to be of major significance for the artistic developments of the sixties, but they also offer explosive material for reflection and reaction to contemporary artists.

NEW ZERO -contemporary artists relate to the Zero avant-garde

 

Piero Manzoni - John Nixon.
Works from Herning/Denmark

NEW ZERO - the title also indicates that contemporary artists relate to the Zero avant-garde in a number of ways, that they find prior formulations here of material definitions, views of works and an undogmatic, non-hierarchical view by art of itself that still offers material for debate and ideas for positioning today.

By choosing Sylvie Fleury, Andreas Reiter Raabe, Simone Westerwinter and Heimo Zobernig we have concentrated on artists from the generation around 1960, who argue mainly in the context of pictures in our selection. An important feature of all of them is that they do not actually relate to individual works by their predecessors, but to the way in which they were received in terms of art history, to the breath of the 'auratic' and the 'revolutionary' that is often invoked in contemporary manifestos and in essays about these artists.

Reformulations, from Fleury to Zobernig, aim to reject any claim to being absolute (by works/artists), in order to use this as a way of finding a measure that we can use to address the artistic propositions of the historical avant-garde today.

The special exhibition "Piero Manzoni - John Nixon. Works from Herning/Denmark" is a pars pro toto representation of the intensity of these dialogues. John Nixon is an Australian concept artist. He chose about twenty works by the 'achromatic' Manzoni to which he responds - arguing individually - with monochrome orange works from his "Experimental Painting Workshop" (EPW).

His credo, which also applies to the NEW ZERO exhibition as a whole, is as follows: "Radical Modernism is a project that cannot be brought to a conclusion that represents this the demand for experiment and the history of this experiment. My interest is not so much to return to history as to develop this history. I see my work as a continuation of the radical Modern project."