Page 23 - Studio International - July 1965

The Story of Zero

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Photo. Ulrich Degenhardt

general onesidedness. ·our work tried to be repre­ Baden. had from the start an epigonal character. There
sentative of a process rather than a pre-established was a generally cinetic tendency. Mack had begun
principle' he says. The chef d'ecole had begun to speak. making Light Dynamos. Piene·s Light Machines were
The Zero artists were put in an international setting moving towards the automatic principle. The latter's
once again at the Festival d'Art d'Avant-Garde in Paris Smoke Paintings of 1960 had developed into Fire
in November 1960. But Bewogen-Beweging in Amster­ Paintings and gouaches. where the igniting of the
dam next March was more important It was the first fixative gives final form or else destroys the work.
great international exhibition of cinetic art and travelled Finally Zero Ill. the third. enlarged. illustrated. final
on through Scandinavia. It was followed that Summer number of the publication. was published in Summer
by 'New Tendency· in Zagreb. the first international 1961 and celebrated by a demonstration outside
abstract show in the Communist world. In December Schmela's gallery. Without essays. just with the illus­
1961 another first. an extended Zero show at Arnheim. trations and the artists· notes. it was to have the slow
with twenty-five participants. Meanwhile the tendency effect of a time-bomb. Nothing did more to fix the
had broadened out to some extent inside Germany. tendency in the international consciousness.
Individual artists. such as Hermann Goepfert in Frank­ In January 1962 Museum Schloss Morsbroich near
fort. had been working independently but parallel since Leverkusen showed Lucio Fontana. Piene spoke at the
1958. Others. like those around the Munich publication opening and himself had a little exhibition on a lower
Nota derived directly from Dusseldorf. Still others. like floor. One of the visitors was Fontana·s then London
those around Klaus Fischer and Kunstwerk in Baden- dealer. Peter Tunnard. His visit had considerable results.
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