When the distinguished historian Jürgen Osterhammel received the Sigmund Freud Prize in 2014, hisspeech of acceptance bore the title “Decisions and Beginnings.” This was an allusion to how authors from the humanities consciously set the tone and narrative perspective in their writings. “In any case,” said the author ofmajor works on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “the twentieth century demands other forms ofrepresentation: more fractured and fractal, accentuating and making individual voices audible.”

The editors and authors of The ABCs of ZERO do not tell the history/story of ZERO in a linear fashion either. They proceed by following the English alphabet, a method as complex as it is simple. It is complex, because this structure has involved major decisions on the part of all those involved: each letter features but once, yet there is no losing sight of the big picture. And it is simple because, for readers, the outcome and how to use it are easy: they now have the key terms of ZERO laid out clearly before their eyes.

The ABCs of ZERO is a research tool, henceforth, for anyone interested in this art movement—as well as in the historical era that the ZERO generation itself, despite everything, faced with a great deal of optimism. We are very happy to support this undertaking with Foundation funds, and we wish this important book the success it rightfully deserves.

Dr. Angela Kühnen, Member of the Executive Board, Gerda Henkel Foundation

“ZERO is good for you” was the motto with which, in 1966, the three Düsseldorf artists Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker celebrated the dismantling of their collaboration that had begun eight years earlier—Uecker joining in 1961—with a grand “ZERO Midnight Ball” at Rolandseck railway station in Remagen. Even the end of their collaboration seemed imbued with optimism. From their base in the Rhineland, the three artists launched an art movement in the late nineteen-fifties and earlynineteen-sixties that radiated a spirit of optimism and lightness—in stark contrast to the often-gloomy abstractions of Art Informeland Tachisme, in which the psychological and physical devastation wrought by the Second World War lingered. In view of the crisis-ridden times we live in, one could wish that this confidence would spread to us and brighten up our faces a little, upon which war, pandemic, and environmental destruction have left their marks.

But the ZERO movement was not only characterized by playful free-spiritedness and hope for the future. This association of artists, which operated in an international context and, like Surrealism, did not have a style of its own but rather an attitude, had intellectual foundations, and stood for far-reaching visions. Along with the forces of nature, it was not least technological progressthat fed the optimism of the ZERO movement and promised hope for the future.

Although the ZERO artists created networks and made friends throughout Europe, the principal stages of their nine-year collaboration took place in the immediate vicinity of the Rhine: the movement began in the rooms of the studio house rented by the artists in Düsseldorf-Unterbilk, and their last exhibition together took place around seventy kilometers up the Rhine at the Städtische Kunstsammlungen (Municipal Art Museum) in Bonn. To mark the finale of ZERO, they organized the aforementioned Midnight Ball at Rolandseck railway station, south of Bonn, where, among other attractions, there was a theatrical performance in which a wagon full of straw was set on fire and sent running from the station toward the Rhine, where it sank in the river.

The ZERO avantgarde has left its indelible mark on the Rhineland. We not only encounter its productions—the Light Stelae by Heinz Mack, the kinetic installations of Otto Piene, or the Nail Pictures and Objects by Günther Uecker—in museums and galleries, but also in parks, opera houses, or on the façades of department stores. Even decades after it was created, ZERO art does not look one bit outdated and still amazes us with its playful lightness and joy in experimentation. Safeguarding and researching this cultural heritage, whose enduring significance extends far beyond the history of German art, is one of the coretasks of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR)—the Rhineland Region Communal Association. We are therefore delighted that The ABCs of ZERO, initiated by the ZERO foundation and developed together with international researchers, could be realized with the support of LVR funding for culture. Its interdisciplinary approach, the archival material provided by the ZERO artists Mack, Piene, and Uecker from the ZERO foundation in Düsseldorf and, last but not least, the interdisciplinary key concepts guiding the endeavor, enable us to take a fresh view of this avantgarde movement from new perspectives.

Anne Henk-Hollstein, Chairperson of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR)

Ulrike Lubek, Director of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR)

The Friends of the ZERO foundation Düsseldorf Association is committed to keeping alive the ZERO idea—the radical renewal of art after the Second World War—and to promoting and supporting it on a regular basis. It is therefore a great pleasure for us tolend our support to the ABCs of ZERO research project.

Past projects to which our Association has contributed include publication of the volume The Artist as Curator, the major ZEROretrospective exhibition ZERO: The International Art Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, at the Gropius Bau in Berlin in 2015, and, above all, contributions to the restoration and furnishings of the ZERO House.

More recently, the Friends of the ZERO foundation have provided financial support for: the ZERO Art and Fashion project, which was realized to mark the ZERO foundation’s fifteenth anniversary; the exhibitions Otto Piene: Stars, at the National Museum in Wrocław, and Mack, at the ZKM Karlsruhe; and the purchase of two works by Günther Uecker, %%%Sintflut%%% (Die Engel fliegen) and Sintflut Manifest: Überflutung der Welt TRANSGRESSION, both from 1963, as well as an untitled white monochrome work of 1961 by Hermann Bartels.

The publication The ABCs of ZERO not only brings the archive of the ZERO foundation to life and makes it accessible to a widerpublic, but the contributions to this book also make it clear just how topical and relevant the ZERO themes—such as light, fire,nature, and kinetics—still are today, and how beneficial the artists’ consistently positive and optimistic attitude to the future is for usas well. It is therefore most gratifying that this publication is complemented by a website of the same name in German and English.We wish the publication and the website a wide readership and outreach and look forward to the ensuing discussions.

Dr. Detlef Hunsdiek, Chairperson of the Friends of the ZERO foundation

Besides numerous exhibition catalogs, with the two books ZERO 4321 and The Artist as Curator, the ZERO foundation has already published two important academic publications that resulted from the research activities and studies carried out by the foundation since 2008.

With the third volume in this academic series, The ABCs of ZERO, the foundation moves away from a chronological account and looks at interdisciplinary aspects. As with the previous publications, the ZERO foundation is supported by renowned international scholars; this time not only by art historians, but also by experts from the fields of music, theater and performance, literature, cultural policy, the art trade, and, of course, art studies.

Opening the Archive is the subtitle of The ABCs of ZERO, which suggests, but does not predetermine, the direction that the investigation might take. The archival materials from the period 1957/58 to 1966, which Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker donated to the foundation, enable a historically sound analysis to be developed. In addition, there are conversations, thoughts, and documents sourced from other archives that make the ABC a storehouse of authentic knowledge. From the book’s contributions, a vivid picture of ZERO artin the nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties emerges, following such key terms as A for Atelier, B for Books, K for Kinetics, and L for Light.

In 1957, posters for the West German federal election to the Bundestag advised “No experiments.” We are very glad indeed that the ZERO artists ignored this advice, and instead set out to create art on the basis of Europe-wide friendships, the reverberations of which continue to this day and keep our curiosity undiminished. The ZERO foundation, too, likes to experiment and to facilitate new encounters in unusual formats. Many thanks to the ZERO team, first and foremost Barbara Könches, who have given us this experience with their commitment to, and in the name of, ZERO!

We would also like to thank the authors of the publication, as well as those who made this challenging project possible with their financial and nonmaterial support: the Kunststiftung NRW (Art Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia) (Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Sternberg, Dr. Andrea Firmenich); the Gerda Henkel Foundation (Dr. Angela Kühnen); the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (Rhineland Regional Association) (Anne Henk-Hollstein, Ulrike Lubek); the Friends of the ZERO foundation (Dr. Detlef Hunsdiek); and the Vervoordt Gallery (Boris Vervoordt).

Dr. Friderike Bagel, Chairperson of the ZERO foundation, 2008–23

(Excerpt from the welcome address for the workshop held on September 1, 2023, at ZERO House)