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Exhibition

ZERO AND NOUVEAU RÉALISME
ZERO AND NOUVEAU RÉALISME
Raymond Hains
En deux parties, 1961
TORN POSTERS ON SHEET IRON
ahlers collection
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
26. February 2016 - 26. June 2016

ZERO AND NOUVEAU RÉALISME

QUESTIONING REALITY

From the mid-1950s onwards, European art saw the emergence of new strategies for appropriating reality. These came to the fore in works and texts by a network of artists who maintained friendships with one another. Young artists and sculptors took a stand against the visualisation of internal psychological processes, as was standard in the dominant style of art informel. In cities such as Milan, Düsseldorf and Paris, a new generation of artists came together and found that national borders proved no barrier to their colleagues’ pursuit of similar goals. They were united by what they had in common: the rejection of art informel. ZERO, Azimuth, G58, GRAV and nouveau réalisme were groups of artists that formed at the intersections of different artistic interests and methods. Artists who shared the same mindset put on joint exhibitions, self-published and took part in collective action. They asked the same questions of the world and formulated similar answers in their works and theoretical reflections. The question of the relevance of art to the construction of reality led them to strip back their visual language in order to achieve objectifiable results in their work. These pieces questioned and appropriated reality, and they aimed at sparking a direct confrontation with the realities of art and life. Themes such as the use of monochrome, serial structures, chance, light and fire became established technical-artistic, or natural-elementary, means of creating a work of art.The reduction of visual language and the accompanying experiments in form, material and technique were joined by an expansion of the idea of the artwork. This expansion was a key element in both ZERO and nouveau réalisme. Limiting colour and form and methodically stripping back the artist’s own intervention stood in dialectical opposition to the removal of spatial, material and medial boundaries. 

In January 1963, Otto Piene gave a public speech in Krefeld, in which he proclaimed a ‘new idealism’, which he viewed as completely distinct from new realism. Piene saw ZERO and nouveau réalisme as ‘related and yet fundamentally opposed’. This proclamation led to a controversial conflict between three Düsseldorf-based ZERO artists – Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker – which was one of the core reasons for the group’s split at the end of 1966. As early as May 1965, the exhibition ZERO: Mack, Piene, Uecker, organised at the Kestnergesellschaft by Wieland Schmied, laid bare growing divisions between the three protagonists. 

This exhibition is a joint project by the Ahlers Pro Arte Foundation and the ZERO Foundation and is made possible by the efforts of Ahlers AG. It investigates the points of similarity and difference between ZERO and nouveau réalisme, focusing on aspects of structure and the appropriation of material. It follows in the footsteps of the historic ZERO exhibition at the Kestnergesellschaft by taking Mack, Piene and Uecker as representatives of the movement. Pieces by the nouveaux réalistes are supplied by the extensive ahlers collection. Works by Arman, Yves Klein, Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé are foregrounded, shown alongside pieces by François Dufrêne, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri and Jean Tinguely.

The exhibition includes around one hundred paintings, sculptures, graphic artworks and objects. Pieces from the ahlers collection and the ZERO Foundation are complemented by prominent loans from European museums and private collections.

The accompanying publication features an introduction by the art historian Dirk Pörschmann of the ZERO Foundation, alongside two historic texts by the art critics Wieland Schmied and Pierre Restany, who contextualise the theoretical discussion. Both the pro-ZERO Schmied and Restany, who is considered to be nouveau réalisme’s foremost thinker, are uniquely qualified for this task, having both kept close company with the artists over the course of many years and having published widely on the post-war avant-garde.

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