D Diagram
by Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt
ZERO’s charts
On September 26, 1964, the exhibition Integratie 64 opened in Antwerp. It was organized by the Belgian artist Jef Verheyen (1932–1984) and the writer Paul de Vree (1909–1982). The latter was also in charge of the project’s publicity and public relations. In his short introduction to the exhibition, de Vree emphasized the need to bring architecture, art, and technology together to form a “universal unity,” now that industry, and with it technology, had created new social structures in society that demanded a unity that was innovative. Instead of speaking about works of art in the conventional sense, de Vree envisioned artistic prototypes that would play a part in shaping the future. Instead of questioning and critiquing their own reality, he urged artists to participate in a “new reality.” For since the nineteenth century, architects, visual artists, and musicians had been busy in an endeavor to reconcile mass culture and technical innovations. Now, however, modern materials had to be tested in experiments to ascertain their applicability, and then utilized to advance into new aesthetic dimensions. According to de Vree’s optimistic convictions about the future, such fundamental changes would eventually embrace all areas of civilization.[i]
[i] See Paul de Vree, “Integration 64,” Plan 1, Special Issue Integratie (1964), p. 4.
Alongside this text, de Vree presented his main ideas in a diagram. The vividness of Integratie makes up for what his introduction to Integratie 64, formulated clumsily in German, lacked in clarity. The programmatic importance that de Vree attached to his schematic drawing can be inferred from the fact that he reproduced it in a special issue of the magazine De Tafelronde, which he directed and published, shortly after the exhibition opened. The original diagram may have been lost in the meantime, but its publication raised it to the status of an enduring document of theorizing that was influenced by cultural sociology, which prefaces de Vree’s editorial, “Integratie.”[i]
[i] See Paul de Vree, “Integratie,” De Tafelronde 10 vols., no. 1 (1964), pp. 3–10.
If one interprets the transverse oval in de Vree’s diagram as the closed cosmos of what goes on in the arts, then it is determined by two parameters whose effects extend from the periphery to the center: the “sociale omwereld” (social environment) above and the “technische omwereld” (technical environment) below. In these hemispheres, “massa” and “machine” are two categories dialectically opposed to each other, separated by a timeline not marked by years that runs across the entire width of the ellipse’s space. Along this axis, de Vree notes prominent stages in the development of art, beginning with “Klassicisme” and “impressionisme,” two contrary nineteenth-century styles with regard to optics (“optiek”), which are located on the far left—on extraterritorial terrain as it were, but at any rate outside the art world of the twentieth century. The stages of development run, following the direction of reading, from Classicism and Impressionism, via “kubisme” and “dada,” to “nieuw realisme”—or, more generally, in a progressive linear sequence from the easel painting of the nineteenth century to the artistic design of the human habitat after World War II. Shifted in parallel and assigned to the “sociale omwereld,” another line of development leads from “fauvisme” via “expressionisme” to the “nieuwe figuratie.”
In his diagram, de Vree drew a picture of European art in which older models linger and continue to exert an effect. One does not have to go back thirty years to the Diagram of Stylistic Evolution from 1890 to 1935 of 1936, by Alfred H. Barr Jr. (1902–1981), in order to recognize the leitmotif of binarism here.[i] Admittedly, this comparison has its flaws. In Barr’s flow chart, there is a dichotomous bifurcation of abstract art, which drifts apart into nongeometric and geometric directions. De Vree also characterized this development as an ever-new process of splitting. Thus, in Integratie, for example, two contrary avant-garde directions emerge from Cubism, Surrealism, and Constructivism that are negotiated and influenced by Dada, and thus exemplarily represent the hemispheres permeated by “subjektivisme” and “objektivisme,” respectively. However, unlike Barr, de Vree operates with indications of temperature: the “warm” current of “informeel” and the “koud” (cold) current of geometric abstract art.[ii] In this internal world of aesthetics, at the equatorial level the thermodynamically heated avant-garde leads to ever-more schisms: to “experimenteel” and to “lyrisch abstrakt”—qualities that are intrinsic to art and can be followed farther to “pop’art” and “op’art.”
[i] Michel Seuphor, who despised figurative art, was among the first to fully appreciate Barr’s chart: he included it in his seminal book L’Art abstrait: Ses origines, ses premiers maîtres of 1949, which was reprinted many times, and thus contributed to spreading the binary construction of history.
[ii] Later, Germano Celant—with recourse to Marshall McLuhan’s terminology—would speak of the transition of “warm” Art Informel (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann, Mark Rothko, Jean Fautrier, Alberto Burri, Jean Dubuffet, and Georges Mathieu) into “cold” Art Informel (Neo-Dada, Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus, Happenings, ZERO group, and Conceptual Art). See Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni 1933–1963, exh. cat. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunsthalle Tübingen, trans. Michael Obermayer (Munich, 1973), p. 4.
Like Barr before him, de Vree employs dialectical extremes that are in the tradition of polarizing argumentation, but with a decisive difference: he carries over the aesthetic opposites that constitute Pop Art and Op Art into a superordinate unity. Under the major concept “integratie,” which he highlights in boldface type, de Vree summarizes what, in essence, does not belong together, but is nevertheless thought to be symbiotically and progressively effective in the future—with the fascination for technological achievements and the possibilities for expansion associated with them. Thus, the germ cell “integratie,” drawn with a broken line to indicate receptivity, absorbs contrary tendencies and strives—programmatically charged as it is—for independence from old framing conditions toward a new era.
In his diagram, de Vree traces, as it were, the broad, not to say rough, lines of aesthetic developments during the twentieth century, in the fraught area between “mass society” and “machine,” in order to develop—with “integration”—a productive perspective on a desired future. In this way, a theoretical picture emerges that gives an impression of the sense of new beginnings that prevailed in the sixties, to which the “zero beweging” had not least contributed, and which in de Vree’s schema is assigned to Op Art.[i] The diagram published in De Tafelronde did not, however, provide any information about the conceptual preconditions under which the ZERO movement began, what guiding artistic principles it pursued, or who was associated with it—in short, what its essence was. It was Heinz Mack (b. 1931) who provided this information later by means of three diagrams.
[i] ZERO in the narrower sense was Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, and, as of 1961, Günther Uecker. The Düsseldorf protagonists—along with sixteen other artists—exhibited works in the Integratie 64 exhibition, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.
More on Diagrams
In 1966, Mack returned to Germany, after two years in New York, and reoriented himself artistically. The suggestion to dissolve the three-member ZERO group—which consisted of himself, Otto Piene (1928–2014), and Günther Uecker (b. 1930)—came from Mack that same year. The time was ripe for a résumé. With the speculatively titled Zéro: mögliche Konzeptionen (Zéro: Possible Conceptions),[i] Mack drafted a diagram that summarizes ZERO’s aesthetic program in retrospect. At the moment of the artists’ consensual parting of the ways, it records the ideas that connected the members of the Düsseldorf group and other artists for eight years without a founding event, without a manifesto, and without any obligation of commitment.
With thick arrows and colored pencils, Mack reconstructed the strata of thoughts and ideas upon which ZERO was founded. Here, (art) theory was conceived in its original sense, and at the same time it was Kantian, as it were. It is presented in clear-cut graphics—which, conversely, can always turn from contemplation into theory—the smallest units of which are the key concepts. Mack’s elaborated text-image accomplishes both: it breaks down the artistic ideas into concepts, which are in turn given pictorial form with sketches. The result is an art-theoretical tableau in which the didactic experiences of this former art teacher continue to have an effect, Mack having practiced this bread-and-butter profession (with civil servant status) in parallel with his work as an artist until 1964. The catalog magazine ZERO (1958–61), which he and Piene edited, served as a source of inspiration.
[i] Heinz Mack, Zero: mögliche Konzeptionen, 1966. Felt-tip pen, colored pencil, pencil, ballpoint pen, ink, and collage on white paper, mounted on black cardboard, 74.5 x 100 cm (cardboard), 70.5 x 65 cm (sheet of paper), archive of the ZERO foundation, estate of Heinz Mack, inv. no. mkp.ZERO.1.IV.30.
The titular motto of the overview Zero: Possible Conceptions is compositionally bracketed by two black arrows extending from the upper right corner to the lower half of the page; the diagram with the horizontally drawn blue connecting arrow is divided into two according to content. The upper half, structured in five columns, is best read from left to right and from top to bottom. The central concern of assembling the artists into three groups is made clear by including one schematic drawing for each: the coordinate cross, the circular model, and the horizontal line. These stand for “structure,” “centralization,” and “line(s)”—all guiding concepts that share common intersections and are based on formal criteria: “plane,” “point,” and “line.” The mastermind behind this triad of concepts was Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944). His book Punkt und Linie zu Fläche (Point and Line to Plane) was first published as the ninth volume of the Bauhaus Books series in 1926, and three new editions appeared in rapid succession from 1955 to 1963, overseen by the former Bauhaus student Max Bill (1908–1994). Kandinsky made the case for an abstract formal language, which, together with the continuing great interest in “concrete art”—especially among artists—guaranteed the book a lively reception.[i]
For ZERO, the conclusion to be drawn from the painterly elements plane, point, and line inside a curved bracket was “reduction.” What this signified was the “abolition of complexity,” as a subsequent addition inserted in pencil specifies. This went hand in hand with the “tendency towards Minimal Art,” which Mack had personally followed at close quarters in the USA. What the typographic bracket does not address is the implicit thrust of the terms: Art Informel and Tachisme; in short, expressionism of every kind, with which the three ZERO artists had experimented at the outset of their artistic careers, but from which they then freed themselves through formal reduction.
[i] This is why Kandinsky was featured at the beginning of the 1960 exhibition Konkrete Kunst (Concrete Art), organized by Max Bill. See Konkrete Kunst: 50 Jahre Entwicklung, exh. cat. Helmhaus (Zurich, 1960), pp. 9–10.
Halfway down the page, events with a performative character come into view, pushed to the right by a subsequently added short black arrow: “Actions,” “Demonstrations,” “Manifestations,” and “Coloboration” (sic).[i] The common denominator of these groups of works is their expansion of the possibilities for artistic action, combined with the aspiration to generate increased public attention as a “team.” Mack does not, however, disregard the potential dangers involved: pure “provocation” and a relapse into “ideologies.” This alludes—the contradistinction is deliberate—to the appropriation of art by the Nazis, for example, and explains why ZERO’s alliances were with aesthetics and not any political agenda.
Four text boxes contain the central artistic ideas in the characteristic ZERO non-colors of white, black, and gray. Strictly dialectically, Mack always includes “light” in “shadow,” “movement” in “stillness,” the (color) “spectrum” in “monochrome,” and “Landart” (sic) in “space art,” in order to underpin them with central theorems such as “vibration,” and “achromatic”—all programmatic words of “postcolorist painting” (Robert Fleck). Between these specific topics, red arrows establish connections or refer to the major actionist terms above them. In this directional reference frame, “Happening,” on the one hand, and “Landart,” on the other, include artistic directions from which the Düsseldorf ZERO artists have taken essential ideas in order to establish their own aesthetic focuses.
[i] On ZERO’s actions in relation to Happenings and Fluxus events, see Malte Feiler, “Aktionen bei ZERO: Happenings?,” in Klaus Gereon Beuckers, ed., ZERO-Studien: Aufsätze zur Düsseldorfer Gruppe ZERO und ihrem Umkreis (Münster, 1997), pp. 135–48.
Apparently, Mack developed his diagram with its dense information descending in a text-like manner, which at least explains why a page is glued onto the back of the landscape-format page, forming the lower third part of the diagram, and why it was necessary to stabilize the entire portrait-format composition with cardboard backing after the transparent adhesive tape had been removed. Adding this second sheet of paper provided enough space to add another conceptual aspect of ZERO: the consistent use of new materials in art, first and foremost the four elements of “Fire,” “Air,” “Water,” and “Earth,” which are in turn assigned to individual artists.
With the reference to three-dimensional “space” at the bottom of the diagram, a category is invoked that cannot be comprehended topographically. Located between “finite” and “infinite,” the scale can vary from a dot to the universe. ZERO sought the open, pristine space beyond the walls of a museum. Its dimension was light. Like a fountain, it reaches out above the iconic pictorial formula, with its three coordinates, to the artists listed under the headings “Air,” “Water,” and “Earth,” according to Mack’s dictum:
“Without light, matter is invisible, and without space, matter is nonexistent.”[i]
[i] Heinz Mack in conversation with Daniel Birnbaum and Hans Ulrich Obrist, “Simple Is Complex,” trans. Tim Connell, in Heinz Mack: Licht—Raum—Farbe / Light—Space—Colour, exh. cat. Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (Cologne, 2011), p. 32.
The avant-garde striving to expand into the infinite depths of the sky, into the immense expanse of the oceans, or into the monochrome vastness of the desert, is brought back to human civilization at the bottom of the diagram by geographic indications of place: the centrifugal forces of the ZERO movement can be gauged from the far-flung cities of New York, London, Düsseldorf, Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, and Eindhoven.
Mack’s colors follow a strict code, which—exceptions included—are as follows: spatial terms are in blue, actionist program words are in green, and formative design ideas are written in black. Spatial relationships as well as thematic connections are indicated by red arrows. Time and again, Mack took up a fine pen to add short explanations to the main terms in his beautiful uniform handwriting. In this way, terms are related to one another that correspondingly play key roles in ZERO’s approach to art. At the top, the text bubble “the rest in the unrest” provides a first clue. This paradoxical-sounding formulation goes back to a 1958 text of the same name in which Mack describes the artistic tendency to evolve and expand:
In Zero: Possible Conceptions, the direction of development alluded to here runs progressively from the elementary doctrine of planes and surfaces to issues of design that determine spaces.
By putting together and arranging the conceptual approaches of ZERO and its comrades-in-arms under varying aspects, Mack went beyond what an entire generation of artists held in common aesthetically, in order to differentiate by drawing up ever-new lists of names. What actually united these almost two dozen listed artists (they were exclusively men) from nine different countries was their striving to assert themselves—something they shared with all avant-garde movements. If one takes a closer look at the compilations of names framed by thin lines, it is clear that from the very beginning, Mack, Piene, and Uecker were in contact with numerous artists far beyond the borders of Germany. The keyword “coloboration” (sic), as a synonym for “team work” and “group movement,” is significant here. The artists from Düsseldorf had quickly recognized the advantages of a collaborative, collective approach. So was ZERO a metacollective that could be subsumed under the collective term “zero beweging,” as de Vree insinuated? Or was it rather a “group of groups,” as Piene once put it?[i] Mack’s second diagram provides an answer.
[i] Otto Piene, “ZERO Retrospektive,” in ZERO aus Deutschland 1957–1966. Und heute (ZERO out of Germany 1957–1966. And Today), exh. cat. Villa Merkel (Esslingen and Ostfildern, 2000), p. 38
The background to the creation of the diagram Radius Zero (circa 1970),[i] is quickly told. In 1970, Mack, together with Uecker, was invited to participate in preparing an exhibition on the theme “Radius ZERO.” This was an initiative by Alexander Schleber (b. 1939), director of the Phaidon publishing house in Cologne, who convinced Karl Ruhrberg (1924–2006), director of the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, to support this project, for which Schleber wished to produce a publication. In the end, for organizational as well as financial reasons, the exhibition, scheduled for spring 1973, was never realized. What remains are the documents planning the event—and a diagram by Mack that was intended as the basis for the design of the exhibition’s poster.[ii]
Focusing on Schleber’s theme, Mack took a large folio-size sheet and sketched a complete picture of ZERO’s reach with felt-tip and ballpoint pens. Admittedly, the distance in time from the events cited helped him to recognize the larger context of all the interrelated activities that were directly or indirectly linked to the Düsseldorf triumvirate.[iii] In Mack’s analytical approach, the ZERO movement breaks down into individual collectives.
[i] Heinz Mack, Radius Zero, ca. 1970. Felt-tip pen and ballpoint pen on paper, mounted on gray cardboard, 53 x 69 cm (cardboard), 50 x 65 cm (sheet of paper), archive of the ZERO foundation, estate of Heinz Mack, inv. no. mkp.ZERO.1.IV.25.
[ii] See Anette Kuhn, ZERO: Eine Avantgarde der sechziger Jahre (Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1991), pp. 57–58, pp. 241–42, n. 240; Anette Kuhn, “Zero im Kontext der europäischen Avantgarde,” in Zero: Eine europäische Avantgarde, exh. cat. Galerie Neher, Essen; Galerie Heseler, Munich; Mittelrhein-Museum, Koblenz (Oberhausen, 1992), pp. 10‒23.
[iii] See Mack 2011 (see note 9), p. 37; Valerie L. Hillings, “Die Geografie der Zusammenarbeit: Zero, Nouvelle Tendance und das Gruppenphänomen der Nachkriegszeit,” in ZERO: Internationale Künstler-Avantgarde der 50er/60er Jahre, (ZERO: International Artists’ Avant-Garde of the 50s/60s), exh. cat. Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, and Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Étienne (Ostfildern, 2006), p. 76
The result is a topological block model with three vertical formations that consist of a good dozen like-minded groupings. The spatial proximity of these groups on the sheet creates something like a structure, even though their arrangement does not follow any firm national or geographical parameters. First, Mack wrote down the names of the collectives, before adding the names of their protagonists, with details of the groups’ locations or the dates they were founded. In order to keep these different groups of artists apart, Mack drew ovals around them with quick strokes. Here the number “0,” celebrated typographically by ZERO, appears in a new variant of its form: lying horizontally. And, as always in the history of signs, the semantics shift with the transformation. Thus, the transverse ovals may now be understood as germ cells of avant-garde aspirations.
Through subsequent folding, once horizontally and once vertically, a right-angled axial cross has been discreetly inscribed on the paper of the diagram, dividing it into four equal rectangles. Positioned slightly off coordinate “0” in the upper left quarter, “ZERO” in Düsseldorf, with its three protagonists, is the center of the Radius Zero composition. On the chronologically aligned central axis, “ZERO” even presents itself as an ideal center in space and time: between Constructivist-inspired theory at the very top—Władysław Strzemiński’s (1893–1952) Unism and the Mechano-Faktura of Henryk Berlewi (1894–1967) (“Berlevi”), both members of the Polish “Blok Group”—and the “New Realism” in France at the lower end of the central axis. The special position occupied by “Zero” is supported and affirmed by osmotic exchanges with collectives of kindred spirits in neighboring countries. Between the decentralized art scenes, again and again double arrows build bridges, marking connections with gradations of affinity.
A short black double arrow emphasizes the close ties to the Milan circle around the magazine Azimuth, the first issue of which came out in September 1959. In December, the gallery of the same name was founded, which was the most important platform for artists linked to ZERO in Italy until it closed six months later—Gruppo MID was also part of it. The founding of the Milan-based Gruppo T (October 1959) and Gruppo N (pronounced “enne”) in Padua (November 1959) were also inspired by Azimuth. Mack depicted both of these outsiders as a group of islands to the right of the main axis.
Another thick double arrow denotes the strong connection to the Dutch group Nul, separated here into two wings.[i] In contrast, two arrow outlines in violet flag important relationships to the French art metropolis: to GRAV (Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel), on the one hand, and to New Realism, on the other. The radius of action that Mack shows in his diagram is concentrated on Europe. It was there that a kind of overarching group formation emerged, easily recognizable by the artist circles ringed in red, which were at home on the Rhine, the Lambro, and the Amstel.
[i] Mack characterizes Herman de Vries as a maverick in Radius Zero. Because of his extensive work as a writer, later art historians did not consider him as belonging to the artist group Nul.
Contrary to what the sweeping arrow sign pointing to the “Far East” suggests, ZERO’s actual radius of action was in fact much smaller. The Düsseldorf artists maintained only loose contacts with the Japanese Gutai group, on the left edge of the diagram. Even more difficult, since both politically explosive and aesthetically challenging, was collaboration with avant-garde groups in Argentina (Gruppo Arte Concreto), Spain (Equipo 57, founded in exile in Paris), the USSR (Group Dvizdjenje [Movement]), and Yugoslavia (Nove Tendencije)—all contemporaneous phenomena but without any overt connection to ZERO.[i]
[i] On the collaborative works produced by the collectives mentioned by Mack, see Nina Zimmer, SPUR und andere Künstlergruppen: Gemeinschaftsarbeit in der Kunst um 1960 zwischen Moskau und New York (Berlin, 2002), pp. 264–93.
What is implied in Radius Zero, but not explicitly stated, are the benefits accruing from alliances between artists, initially based on friendships, that spanned countries and continents: the strategic expansion of ZERO’s sphere of influence with the firm goal of advancing its own internationalization, group show by group show, publication by publication. It will become apparent that this policy of alliance was dictated by changing interests, in which the latent competition inherent in the relationships became increasingly apparent.
While the artist groups circled in the diagram partially touch each other, sometimes forming intersections or rudimentary interlinks, the long thin arrow drawn between “Zero” and the “Gutai Group” represents spatial distance and inner estrangement. The long-distance relationship that ZERO maintained with the collective founded in Osaka in 1954 was initially based on their shared interest in initiating a new beginning for art after World War II. However, neither effective transcontinental bonding forces nor Mack’s assessment of the situation lasted. The ties with the Japanese group grew weaker over time, until Mack, in an act of self-reflective distancing, described it as a “parallel movement” with which ZERO had nothing (any longer) in common, in view of the group’s “poetic” and “Dadaist” objects—a later correction that keeps completely quiet about something they had shared: the Space Art actions carried out both here and there.[i] Of course, this cannot be read from the diagram itself, nor can ZERO’s differences from Nul, GRAV, or Nove Tendencije, which were stated later.[ii]
In Radius Zero, on the other hand, another of Mack’s observations, made at “artesian wells,” found visible expression: the fact that similar artistic ideas were manifesting themselves at the same time in different places could be assigned without difficulty to the “Zero” circle.[iii]
[i] See Mack 2011 (see note 9), pp. 38–41.
[ii] See Hillings 2006 (see note 14), who—partly with reference to Mack and Piene—maps out the differences between the groups mentioned.
[iii] See Heinz Mack in conversation with Stephan von Wiese, “ZERO e Azimuth: Un pozzo artesiano,” in ZERO: 1958–1968 tra Germania e Italia, exh. cat. Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena (Milan, 2004), pp. 165–66; Heinz Mack in conversation with Christiane Hoffmans, in Jürgen Wilhelm, ed., Piene im Gespräch (Munich, 2015), p. 83.
To stay with the artesian wells metaphor: these groupings, which in many places shot out of the ground like geysers, were connected by a “kind of subterranean correspondence.”[i] This is why there was no need for Mack to link all the artists’ groupings in his drawing to “Zero” with arrows. Of the thirteen groups arranged around “Zero,” the trio from Düsseldorf are only directly linked to five. Nevertheless, like communicating cells, as members of transnational, changing exhibition teams they were in constant exchange with each other—be it in letters, by telephone, or in person-to-person conversations. The diagrammatic form that Mack chose to illustrate these interrelated phenomena, however, did not derive from the older “aquatic” symbolism, but from modern network thinking.[ii]
[i] Mack 2015 (see note 19), p. 83.
[ii] See Ulrich Pfisterer and Christine Tauber, eds., Einfluss, Strömung, Quelle: Aquatische Metaphern der Kunstgeschichte (Bielefeld, 2018); Hartmut Böhme, “Einführung: Netzwerke. Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Konstruktion,” in Jürgen Barkhoff, Hartmut Böhme, and Jeanne Riou, eds., Netzwerke: Eine Kulturtechnik der Moderne (Cologne, 2004), pp. 17–36.
This multipolar network of relationships between like-minded creatives stands out with particular clarity in another of Mack’s abstract pictorial formulas, which was also originally created as a poster design. ZERO (Circles),[ii] undated, is a collage of circular found pieces taken from publications, aligned on symmetrical axes, arranged in lines, and closely interrelated with double arrows. The eleven discs—optical rotors, light reliefs, texts, and a flexi disc, all references to actual artworks—nevertheless do not function like machinery. ZERO’s claim of freedom for art could not be illustrated using a mechanical gearbox. Rather, ZERO saw itself as the rotating force of a movement that in Bern, in 1962, was able to present a list of thirty-three artists (top right) participating in a ZERO exhibition. All the connections denoted by arrows guide the viewer’s gaze directly or indirectly to a telephone dial at the lower center of the collage. Here, the self-stylization as a communicative hub with the telephone-dial number “Mack” speaks for itself. Aware of being the mouthpiece of a larger movement, ZERO sought to usher in a new era. The pictured ZERO-Wecker (ZERO Alarm Clock, ca. 1961)[iii]strikes the hour zero. Later, art history will speak of the first German avant-garde movement after 1945.[iv]
[ii] Heinz Mack, ZERO (Circles), undated (ca./after 1964). Collage, felt-tip pen, and pencil on cardboard, 74.5 x 100 cm, archive of the ZERO foundation, estate of Heinz Mack, inv. no. mkp.ZERO.1.IV.31.
[iii] The object ZERO-Wecker (ZERO Alarm Clock) by Heinz Mack (ca. 1961, 15 x 13 x 6 cm, alarm clock with collage), is held in the collection of the ZERO foundation, inv. no. mkp.ZERO.2008.12.
[iv] See Kuhn 1991 (see note 13), p. 8; Renate Wiehager, “5-4-3-2-1-ZERO: Countdown für eine neue Kunst in einer neuen Welt,” in Klaus Gereon Beuckers, ed., Günther Uecker: Die Aktionen (Petersberg, 2004), p. 23.
But back to Radius Zero: the various groups of artists featured represented ideas that were not identical, but related. Together the protagonists took a stand against contemporary art. The metaphysical term “zeitgeist” has been around since the nineteenth century to describe this kind of aesthetic. Mack spoke soberly and analytically of the “ubiquity” of events.[i] Looking at his diagram, moreover, it is quite clear that the various artist groupings did not succeed in joining forces to establish themselves as an internationally effective “school,” and the fact that Mack, Piene, and Uecker went their separate ways after December 1966 also had a decisive influence on this.
[i] Mack 2011 (see note 9), p. 37. Almir Mavignier, on the other hand, made no secret of his utter astonishment at this phenomenon; see Almir Mavignier, “Neue Tendenzen I: Ein überraschender Zufall” (1969), in Tendencije 4 / Tendencies 4, exh. cat. Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti (Zagreb, 1970), n.p.
In critical retrospect, when the peak of the ZERO movement had long since passed, Mack described the relationships among the fourteen artist groupings as “neighborhoods,” who had no apparent desire to cross their own property lines.[i] This metaphor evokes notions of ideational range and intellectual property. The latter was no longer shared but defended.
The reasons for this are to be found in the differing DNA of the collectives. Jack Burnham (1931–2019) distinguished between two bloc formations around “Zero”: the artist groups that favored experimental objectivity, anonymity, perceptual psychology, and socialism (GRAV, the groups T, N, and MID, as well as Equipo 47), and those that focused more on individual research, recognition, poetry, idealism, immateriality, luminosity, and nature (“Zero,” Nul, and, with Yves Klein, a section of the New Realists).[ii] As plausible as Burnham’s paradigmatic differentiation may seem at first glance, it mirrors the formation of blocs on the world’s political stage during the Cold War, however little this may be verified on the basis of Mack’s spatial formation of camps. After all, the factions shifted over and over again between 1957 and 1966. The politics of alliances within the ZERO movement has always been subject to a wide variety of self-interests. It was as unstable as the forces competing for recognition on the broad field of the avant-garde.
In their phase of artistic awakening, the Düsseldorf ZERO artists sought intensive contact with other groups as allies for the dissemination, establishment, and assertion of their own position. They welcomed the participation of important initiators, such as their peer Yves Klein (1928–1962) or the grand seigneur of the Concetti spaziali, Lucio Fontana (1899–1968), while they conversely continued—with increasing success—to work toward their own aesthetic sovereignty in the perception of the outside world.
[i] Heinz Mack in conversation with Anette Kuhn, February 6, 1992; see Kuhn 1992 (see note 13), p. 12.
[ii] Jack Burnham, Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century (New York, 1969), p. 247.
Indicative of this was the Düsseldorf ZEROists’ consternation when New York gallery owner Howard Wise (1903–1989) initially proposed to present their works in “close proximity” to their former idols in November–December 1964.[i] Genealogical fallacies (along the lines of “Aha! So these are the fathers of ZERO!”) were on no account to be put into the minds of the American visitors.[ii] After all, this was ZERO’s first solo show in New York.[iii] The suggestion that one picture by Fontana and one by Klein—both names are found in Mack’s diagram—could be hung in the gallery owner’s office, so that no direct connection was intended or drawn, reassured the ZEROists.[iv]
This shift in emphasis in dealing with kindred spirits is also apparent in Radius Zero. The pioneers are listed in the footer without any connecting arrows—first and foremost Max Bill, the founding director of the Ulm School of Design, mentioned and highlighted in red in the diagram. The invitation of the ZEROists to the 1960 exhibition Concrete Art in Zurich was later to earn Bill the ambivalent praise of being an “(occasional) supporter.”[v] In addition to Bill, and listed horizontally with names side by side, are Fontana, Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967), Barnett Newman (1905–1970), Piero Dorazio (1927–2005), and Jesús Rafael Soto (1923–2005)—all mavericks and authoritative artists for ZERO, amicable encounters with whom were of great importance to the Düsseldorf artists, at least as long as their own careers were not overshadowed by them.[vi]
[i] “We, that is, Uecker and I, were quite shocked, when we heard that H.[oward] W.[ise] wanted to hang a picture of Fontana and Yves in our exhibition.” Heinz Mack in a letter to Otto Piene, September 21, 1964, 13 pages, quotation on p. 12, archive of the ZERO foundation, estate of Heinz Mack, inv. no. mkp.ZERO.2.1.2688_14 (underlines in the original; the first in red).
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] “It is after all our exhibition and Fontana is Fontana and Yves is Yves.” Ibid., p. 13.
[iv] See ibid.
[v] Otto Piene, “ZERO 1989,” in Gruppe Zero, exh. cat. Galerie Schoeller (Düsseldorf, 1988), p. 27; cf. Konkrete Kunst 1960 (see note 7).
[vi] See Heinz Mack, “Aus meinem Leben” (“From My Life”), in Heinz and Ute Mack, eds., Heinz Mack: Leben und Werk. Ein Buch vom Künstler über den Künstler / Life and Work. A Book from the Artist about the Artist. 1931–2011 (Cologne, 2011), pp. 12, 15; Mack 2011 (see note 9), pp. 37–38.
In Radius Zero, Mack, Piene, and Uecker claim to occupy a key position in art history, located between the Polish avant-garde of the nineteen-twenties and the American variant of Concrete Art. However, part of the truth of this (ambivalent) self-historicization is that ZERO did not want to have received its inspiration from these predecessors. The objection came from its own camp:“ZERO” had arisen out of itself, without taking any pride in ancestry such as the historical avant-gardes.[i][i] See Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt, Stammbäume der Kunst: Zur Genealogie der Avantgarde (Berlin, 2005).
He and his two comrades-in-arms only learned about artists such as Strzemiński and his Unism much later, through the Parisian gallery owner Denise René (1912–2012), once again in the history of art invoking the allegory of the phoenix rising from the (postwar) ashes.[i] ZERO’s “elective affinities,” Piene insists, were exclusively personal relationships. These are manifested in ZERO publications, ZERO exhibitions, and ZERO actions.[ii]
[i] Looking back, Mack places ZERO firmly in the tradition of Strzemiński; see Mack 2015 (see note 19), p. 86.
[ii] See Piene 1988 (see note 32), p. 24.
There have been avant-garde movements that drew up a diagrammatic image of themselves to give themselves a program from the outset, and then again there have been others that only in retrospect ascertained the aesthetic principles, ideological underpinnings, and historical constellations that had favored their success. ZERO is one of the latter. Looking back and historicizing, Mack worked out what had ideationally connected the ZERO movement for eight long years. Created in the years after 1964 and 1970, for a long time these diagrams did not have the status of stand-alone works, even though the signatures and dates on some of them proclaimed them as such. It is symptomatic of this nonrecognition that the diagrams were not included among the works for sale in the 1992 exhibition organized by the gallery owners Otmar Neher and Walter Heseler. Moreover, they did not appear in the catalog at all.[i] With the advent of the “diagrammatic turn” in arts and humanities studies after the turn of the millennium, this attitude changed fundamentally.[ii] In the course of a reevaluation of diagrams as aesthetic artifacts, Mack’s diagrams are now no longer seen as unartistic illustrations of abstract facts or contexts. On the contrary: graphical representation is now a genre of its own in art history—and consequently also includes the examples in Heinz Mack’s oeuvre.
[i] See Zero: Eine europäische Avantgarde 1992 (see note 13).
[ii] See Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt, die Kunst der Diagrammatik: Perspektiven eines neuen bildwissenschaftlichen Paradigmas, 2nd ed. (Bielefeld, 2017), pp. 25–28.
This text has been translated from German into English by Gloria Custance.
