G Galleries

As a relatively young, interdisciplinary academic field, art market studies examines, among other things, the various influences of actors and networks in the art market on the formation of the visual arts canon. This includes gallery owners as a relevant group, who often accompany young artists from the beginning of their professional careers: artists’ works are often presented to the public and sold for the first time in galleries; exhibition catalogs are compiled and produced, large-format works are financed in advance, and contacts with exhibition institutions are arranged. Gallerists work as the gatekeepers of the art market. Sociologist Hans Peter Thurn points out that the “gallery owner … slips into the guise of a public relations officer” for the artist.[i] This refers to the fact that gallery owners give speeches, write texts, publish editions, and pursue other activities to publicize and advertise new artists, their novel approaches, and their respective works. To render visible the achievements of individual actors and collaborations between artists and gallery owners requires in-depth, source-based studies. The ZADIK (Zentralarchiv für deutsche und internationale Kunstmarktforschung—Central Archive for German and International Art Market Studies), with its specialized archive on the history of the art market, holds a wealth of archival material on various galleries associated with the ZERO movement, including Rochus Kowallek in Frankfurt am Main (A 18), Galerie art intermedia (Helmut Rywelski) in Cologne (A 103), and Galerie Hubertus Schoeller in Düsseldorf (A 71).

Thanks to the research achievements of recent years—such as Thekla Zell’s extremely well-founded study—we now have deeper insights into the collaboration of some artists with galleries during the period from the end of the nineteen-fifties to the beginning of the nineteen-sixties—a period that was important for the constitution of ZERO. However, the years after the “officially” declared end of the artists’ collaboration in the context of ZERO, by Heinz Mack (b. 1931), Otto Piene (1928–2014), and Günther Uecker (b. 1930), in 1966, still need to be examined in more detail. This chapter aims to provide examples of this and to encourage further research.

[i] Hans Peter Thurn, Der Kunsthändler: Wandlungen eines Berufes (Munich, 1994), p. 124.

The importance of high-profile events for establishing ZERO from the very beginning is well known, starting with the Evening Exhibitions, which, in the words of Thekla Zell, functioned “as a gateway to the public in the sense of a proto-gallery.”[i] Zell also explicates the cooperative idea of the artists, who presented their works both in Galerie Schmela and Galerie 22 in Düsseldorf as well as in the Evening Exhibitions, and she traces the transition from the studio and the Evening Exhibitions to the gallery. This became apparent, for example, with ZERO 3, the third issue of the magazine, in 1961, since this issue was not presented in the studio like the previous ones, but in Galerie Schmela,[ii] and was at once the first comprehensive documentation and the conclusion of the first constitutive phase of ZERO. It was accompanied by the Zero: Edition, Exposition, Demonstration, the first event of the new movement organized by Mack, Piene, and Uecker, which took place under the name “ZERO.”[iii] Not only did Schmela and his wife Monika organize the first solo exhibitions by Mack, Piene, and Uecker in a German gallery,[iv] but Alfred Schmela’s activities as a whole were essential to the constitution and establishment of ZERO in Germany. This is evidenced by Otto Piene’s famous statement that “Zero was just as important to him as he was to Zero,”[v] which appeared in the 1993 publication ZERO: Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker, by the art critic Heiner Stachelhaus. There were also other important protagonists, like Rochus Kowallek with D(ato) Galerie, or Galerie D, Gerhard von Graevenitz and Jürgen Morschel with Galerie Nota, and Kurt Fried with Studio F. Their work is also explored in greater depth by Thekla Zell.

[i] Thekla Zell, Exposition ZERO: Vom Atelier in die Avantgardegalerie. Zur Konstituierung und Etablierung der Zero-Bewegung in Deutschland am Beispiel der Abendausstellungen, der Galerie Schmela, des Studio F, der Galerie Nota und der D(ato) Galerie(Vienna, 2019), p. 131.

[ii] See ibid., p. 127.

[iii] See ibid., p. 134. The Demonstration was reprised at Galerie A in Arnhem, December 9–30, 1961; see “Chronologie,” 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. 276. Tiziana Caianiello points out that in 1959 there had already been an exhibition in the Rotterdamse Kunstkring with the title Zero, in which the Düsseldorf artists had not participated. See Tiziana Caianiello, “Ein ‘Klamauk’ mit weitreichenden Folgen: Die feierliche Präsentation von ZERO 3,” in Dirk Pörschmann and Mattijs Visser, eds., ZERO 4321 (Düsseldorf, 2012), p. 513.

[iv] See Zell 2019 (see note 2), p. 133.

[v] Otto Piene, in Heiner Stachelhaus, ZERO: Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker (Düsseldorf, 1993), p. 155.

The joint ZERO exhibition in Bonn in 1966 (November 25 to December 31) and the accompanying ZERO Midnight Ball, which, with its motto “ZERO is good for you,” gathered around two thousand partygoers[i] at Rolandseck railway station (November 25–26, 1966), were “officially” regarded as the end of the collaboration between Mack, Piene, and Uecker, and thus of ZERO. However, both the original core members as well as artists who had exhibited under the ZERO banner continued their careers as artists, and Mack, Piene, and Uecker also undertook further activities together. These activities, as well as the work of galleries, exhibition venues, collectors, and auction houses, were essential for the reception and particularly the enduring establishment of what is now firmly anchored in the art-historical canon under the term “ZERO.”

This chapter examines the example of the activities of the gallery owner Hubertus Schoeller. His archival holdings at ZADIK include his invitation cards, compilations of press cuttings, and correspondence, as well as documents relating to the preparation of exhibitions,[ii] catalogs,[iii] and festivals. The interview conducted with Schoeller in July 2023 by the author, which is referred to here variously, provides valuable additional information.[iv]

[i] See Thekla Zell, “The ZERO Traveling Circus: Documentation of Exhibitions, Actions, Publications 1958–1966,” in Dirk Pörschmann and Margriet Schavemaker, eds., ZERO: Die internationale Kunstbewegung der 50er und 60er Jahre (ZERO: The International Art Movement of the 1950s and 1960s), exh. cat. Martin-Gropius-Bau and Stedelijk Museum (Berlin, Amsterdam, and Cologne, 2015), p. 169.

[ii] These include correspondence about loans, the acquisition of works for sale, and plans for hanging artworks.

[iii] These include requests for permission to publish or reprint, requests for help in compiling the lists of ZERO exhibitions, collections of material about past exhibitions, galley proofs, and documents concerning the distribution of catalogs.

[iv] Hubertus Schoeller in an interview with Nadine Oberste-Hetbleck, Düsseldorf, July 11, 2023.

Hubertus Schoeller took over the Düsseldorf gallery Ursula Wendtorf and Franz Swetec at Bilker Strasse 12 in 1974,[i] at a point in time when ZERO was already “history.” At the time, the gallery did not have a specific program focus, although ZERO artists had been featured strongly in the five years it had been in existence, as can be seen from the exhibition invitations.[ii]

Schoeller took over the gallery the following year and later, in March 1980, moved to new premises at Poststrasse 2 in Düsseldorf, with the new name of Galerie Hubertus Schoeller “and the interior designed by Nils Sören Dubbick to match the gallery’s program. Until his last exhibition in August 2003, he presented the work of over fifty artists from the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, and almost all the European countries.”[iii]

[i] After taking over the gallery with the exhibition Sovak, Schoeller at first traded under the name “Galerie Ursula Wendtorf und Franz Swetec, Inhaber [owner] Hubertus Schoeller.” In 1976, he changed the name to “Galerie Schoeller vorm. [formerly] Wendtorf + Swetec.”

[ii] Piene was represented with three solo exhibitions, and Uecker also had a solo show. Mack only participated in a group exhibition at the end of 1974. In addition, Hermann Bartels, Hermann Goepfert, Walter Leblanc, Oskar Holweck, and Ferdinand Spindel also exhibited elsewhere under the ZERO banner.

[iii] See the ZADIK inventory profile of Holding A 71, https://zadik.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/archiv/bestandsliste/a-71-schoeller-duesseldorf (accessed January 4, 2024).

Where “artists” are mentioned above, as well as in what follows, it should be pointed out that the artists represented by Galerie Hubertus Schoeller were almost exclusively male. Exceptions included the solo exhibitions of Aurélie Nemours and Hannelore Köhler, as well as individual female artists who participated in group exhibitions.[i] As a whole, however, the program was dominated by male artists, which also reflected the situation in the art market at that time.

[i] Vera Molnar, Nelly Rudin, Dadamaino, and Garcia Varisco were each featured in a group exhibition at Galerie Schoeller. When the gallery was owned by Ursula Wendtorf and Franz Swetec, artists such as Gerlinde Beck, Rune Mields, Claudia Kinast, Mira Haberernova, and Karina Raeck had appeared in its program.

What did the gallery represent in terms of content? In a nutshell, it can be said that “for Schoeller, reduction to the essentials and material perfection were the core elements of his art program.”[i] In the years after taking over the gallery, and especially since its move to the new premises, Schoeller specialized in Constructivist Concrete Art and the art of the ZERO group.

[i] See the ZADIK inventory profile of Holding A 71 (see note 14).

The role that ZERO played for Galerie Hubertus Schoeller is already indicated by its exhibition program with regard to Mack, Piene, and Uecker.[i] In addition, there were the exhibition projects outside the gallery, such as the joint project ZERO: A European Avant-Garde[ii] in 1993, which Schoeller supported, and also the presentations at art fairs, for example, in Cologne or Basel. Over and above these three artists, there are many other artists in the gallery’s program who exhibited in the context of ZERO—for example, Christian Megert (b. 1936), Bernard Aubertin (1934–2015), Hermann Goepfert (1926–1982), Jef Verheyen (1932–1984), Hermann Bartels (1928–1989), and Walter Leblanc (1932–1986), as well as Almir Mavignier (1925–2018), Jesús Rafael Soto (1923–2005), Dadamaino (1930–2004), Uli Pohl (b. 1935), and the Nul group with Jan Schonohoven (1914–1994), Armando (1929–2018), Jan Henderikse (b. 1937), and Henk Peeters (1925–2013).

[i] Of the three original ZERO artists, Piene was the first to have a solo exhibition after Schoeller took over the gallery in 1976/77—six further solo shows followed (in 1980, 1984, 1987/88, 1991, 1995, and 2000), plus three group shows (in 1977/78, 1978/79, and 1988). Mack’s works were presented in three solo exhibitions (in 1993/94, 1998, and 2001) and he was represented in five group shows (in 1977/78, 1978/79, 1981/82, 1986, and 1988). Uecker was represented in three group shows (in 1978/79, 1981/82, and 1988).

[ii] The exhibition was shown at three locations—Galerie Neher in Essen, Galerie Heseler in Munich, and the Mittelrhein Museum in Koblenz—and was accompanied by a catalog.

In the years after Alfred Schmela and his colleague Hans Mayer, who had paved the way for Concrete Art and ZERO after collaboration between the three artists Mack, Piene, and Uecker had ended in 1966, Schoeller regarded himself as a lone figure in Düsseldorf who continued to enable the ongoing representation of ZERO in Germany:

Schoeller’s work, which ZADIK has already addressed to some extent in two thematic monographic exhibitions, will be explored in greater depth below. The focus is on a project by Schoeller that stood out in its commitment to raising ZERO’s visibility, and which initially began with an exhibition mounted for the 700th anniversary of the founding of the city of Düsseldorf, as part of a “parallel” campaign by Düsseldorf galleries on the subject of “Düsseldorf Artists.”[i] In his exhibition, titled Gruppe Zero, Schoeller presented a total of forty-two works by thirty-two artists from September 16 to November 16, 1988, all dating from the period 1957 to 1960.

[i] Ute Grundmann, “Die Kunst im Kontrast,” NZR (Neue Rhein/Ruhr Zeitung), no. 217, September 16, 1988: “Since 1983, they [parallel actions] have accompanied major exhibitions with joint actions.”

In preparation for this exhibition, Schoeller spoke at trade fairs such as Art Basel with owners of works from the relevant period—collectors and artists—and endeavored also to locate exhibits that were for sale. In his efforts it was particularly Piene who supported him: he designed the poster for the exhibition[i] and was also a lender of exhibits. A glance at the list of lenders for the show reveals that a large proportion of the artworks were lent by artists; some of them lent their own works, but some also lent works that they owned by fellow artists. The municipal museum in Leverkusen, Schloss Morsbroich, also supported the exhibition with a loan. The works in the exhibition did not date exclusively from the period, but some had specific historical links: both Almir Mavignier’s Störung (Verschiebung eines Zentrums)—Disturbance (Shift of a Center)—and Yves Klein’s untitled round, red ceramic object.[ii] had been exhibited at ZERO’s 7th Evening Exhibition in 1958; Verheyen’s untitled painting had featured at the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo in 1967; and Uecker’s sculpture New York Dancer had been shown in Amsterdam at the Nul exhibition in 1965, as well as at the above-mentioned exhibition by Mack, Piene, and Uecker in Bonn in 1966.

[i] Letter from Hubertus Schoeller to Otto Piene, Düsseldorf, August 9, 1988, with Piene’s handwritten response to Schoeller, August 16, 1988. The poster could be purchased at the gallery for DM 15, or DM 50 for a copy signed by the artist.

[ii] The lender of this last work was none other than the prominent architect Werner Ruhnau, as the press reported. See Helga Meister, “Aus der Jugend der ZERO-Stars,” WZ (Westdeutsche Zeitung), November 5, 1988.

The local press praised the show as an “exhibition worthy of a museum”[i] and spoke of the “large crowds drawn by the Schoeller Gallery’s Zero exhibition.”[ii] Schoeller had expressly chosen the Düsseldorf galleries’ combined event for his exhibition in order to attract as much attention as possible. After the very positive reception, he decided to publish a catalog of the exhibition project. Here Piene also played a role, as Schoeller recalls:

[i] Ibid.; see also “Von Galerie zu Galerie: Die goldenen Jahre der Avantgarde,” Düsseldorfer Hefte, no. 19, October 1, 1988.

[ii] “Auftrieb bei ‘parallel,’” Rheinische Post, no. 218, September 19, 1988.

In fact, the archival material—correspondence with galleries, museums, collectors, and academics—shows that Schoeller spent more than six months on intensive research, the concept, and editing.[i] A distinctive feature of Schoeller’s catalog is its ambition to go beyond merely documenting the exhibition. In addition to reproducing the works exhibited and photos of installation views, it contained statements by the three ZERO artists[ii] on the then current state of ZERO, an archival documentation of all invitations to the Evening Exhibitions,[iii] the covers of the issues of ZERO magazine with their tables of contents, and historical photos from the ZERO period. In addition—and this was truly labor-intensive—Schoeller compiled a chronological “List of Group Zero Exhibitions.” From this, he then transferred the names of the artists to an alphabetical directory, which shows in chronological order the ZERO exhibitions in which each artist had participated. Why did he do this? Schoeller recalls:

[i] See the collection of correspondence from the period April 19 to September 28, 1989, ZADIK, A 71, VIII: Zero-Katalog, Zero Ausstellung 1959–96. Notes on the letters show that much information was obtained by personal communication or by telephone.

[ii] Schoeller 2023 (see note 10): “And then I asked Mack, Piene, and Uecker for their views on ZERO today. Piene writes quite clearly: ZERO is still valid today, Mack says it was an important period, but it’s over, and Uecker doesn’t respond at all, which is also an answer.”

[iii] Schoeller 2023 (see note 10): “Also included were all nine invitations to the Evening Exhibitions that I had received from Piene.”

With the increasing distance of time from the project, Schoeller reflects:

“It was a point of reference, although I would do it differently today. Back then, I only included the exhibitions that had ZERO in the title. So some of them, like the Antwerp exhibition [Vision in Motion—Motion in Vision, 1959, at the Hessenhuis Museum], were left out and Adolf Luther (1912-1990) is also not included—today, I would include them.”

This ambitious project of Schoeller’s demanded extensive research and the help of numerous people and institutions. Schoeller asked for confirmation that the respective exhibitions had indeed taken place, requested the lists of participating artists, asked for flyers or invitations, and placed an order to purchase any catalog that had been published. The result is a rich collection of material and ephemera from the ZERO period in the Schoeller collection, a veritable treasure trove, which at the same time is an illustration of ZERO’s geographical expansion at that time.[i] It was not without reason that Schoeller, taking up an idea of Heinz Mack’s, drew up a map of the world showing the ZERO exhibitions that had been identified. This also brought with it a fresh insight for the gallery owner, because on the map the ZERO exhibitions that had taken place clearly exhibited a dominant north–south expansion. The geographical visualization of the outreach of exhibitions or art fairs, for example, is a method that has become increasingly dominant in exhibition research in recent years, often with the support of the digital humanities. Schoeller made this approach fruitful avant la lettre and says himself that “this was more of a catalog for research and work than a catalog of pictures.” The gallery distributed the catalog, which it had produced itself in a print run of 1,500 copies, priced DM 76. The release of the publication was celebrated with a party on December 9, 1989, in keeping with the ZERO tradition. Schoeller reports:

[i] See ZADIK, A 71, VII.

The festive ZERO evening described by Schoeller and filmed by Werner Raeune on video took place on the aforementioned date of December 9, 1989, from half past eight until midnight in Galerie Hubertus Schoeller. In point of fact, the motif of the black cardboard hat was based on something comparable in ZERO’s history: at the Expositie Demonstratie in December 1961 at Gallery A in Arnhem, black cardboard tubes with white ZERO lettering were worn.[i] On February 10, 1964, Mack, Uecker, and Piene took part in the Monday parade, the highlight of German Carnival, in Düsseldorf, where they also wore tall black cardboard hats.[ii] This object, which was already familiar in the ZERO context, was supplemented by the sparklers. The appreciation shown by the guests for the props at the party is striking: recognizing them as collector’s items, they had the hats signed by the artists, as well as the catalog.

[i] See photo 29.2, in Pörschmann and Visser 2012 (see note 4), p. 454.

[ii] Caianiello, in Pörschmann and Visser 2012 (see note 4), pp. 510–26, takes an in-depth look at the ZERO presentations and their links to avant-gardes of the past such as Dada, and in particular Futurism. She also explores the connection between the three Düsseldorf artists and elements of German Carnival on pp. 521–22.

The response to the celebration was remarkable: the video and the photographs already show that the crowd was large. A note on a beer mat in the archives confirms that 410 people had registered for the event and that 350 actually attended.

Schoeller rates highly the significance of the event for the visibility of ZERO: “I would say that that was the first time ZERO was resurrected again. Because the first time, as far as I remember, the Kunsthaus Zurich put on a very good ZERO exhibition [Zero: Image Presentations of a European Avant-Garde 1958–1964,June 1 to August 5, 1979, after the official end of the ZERO movement],[i] then there was a break.” And in fact, things did start moving to a certain extent regarding the visibility of ZERO at the end of the nineteen-eighties. The Lenz Schönberg private collection, which toured to several locations around the world, played a role in this.[ii] In 1988, however, Armin Zweite noted in the accompanying catalog: “Despite a variety of efforts, it can scarcely be said that the goals of ZERO have gained greater significance in the awareness of the art-interested public.”[iii] With regard to art-historical research, scholarly projects that address the movement’s history are significant, such as Anette Kuhn’s[iv] doctoral thesis of 1988 and Schoeller’s publication. The press reports were impressed by his documentation: “What is characteristic of this group of artists is meticulously listed here.… Because this is the first time it has been done [sic] and so comprehensively, gallery owner Schoeller has presented the long overdue handbook and reference work which should be emphasized all the more emphatically.”[v] This author’s assessment was correct: with his publication, Schoeller created an important reference work that was definitely the basis for several museum exhibitions that subsequently took place. Looking back in 2006, Günter Herzog described Schoeller’s publication as “one of the most complete documentations of the history of the movement to date.”[vi]

[i] According to Ursula Perucchi-Petri, the exhibition “provided a historical overview of the phenomenon Zero.” Ursula Perucchi-Petri, in Zero: Bildvorstellungen einer europäischen Avantgarde, 1958–1964, exh. cat. Kunsthaus (Zürich, 1979), p. 6. In addition to art-historical texts on the artists in the exhibition, the catalog contains historical photos, text excerpts from past catalogs, interviews, and twenty artist biographies.

[ii] After the first presentation at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main in 1974/75, a larger part of the collection was shown in a movie theater auditorium in Salzburg city center in 1985, and then, shortly after Schoeller’s gallery opened, in the exhibition Gruppe Zero at the end of September 1988, in the Städtischen Galerie in the Lenbachhaus in Munich. See ZERO: Vision und Bewegung. Werke aus der Sammlung Lenz Schönberg, exh. cat. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (Munich, 1988). Schoeller also remembers the international presentations: “In the 1990s, it was the Lenz Collection that toured the world as an exhibition—Madrid, Moscow….” Schoeller 2023 (see note 10). See Hannah Weitemeier, ed., Sammlung Lenz Schönberg: Eine europäische Bewegung in der bildenden Kunst von 1958 bis heute, exh. cat. Zentrales Künstlerhaus am Krimwall Moskau (Stuttgart, 1989).

[iii] Armin Zweite, “Vorwort,” in ZERO: Vision und Bewegung 1988 (see note 30), p. 7.

[iv] Working under the supervision of doctoral advisor Eduard Trier at the Ruhr University Bochum, Kuhn was one of the first scholars to engage with ZERO in an academic context. See Anette Kuhn, Zero und Yves Klein: Aspekte einer deutschen Avantgarde der sechziger Jahre, Ph.D. diss. (Ruhr University Bochum, 1988).

[v] “Schoeller, Düsseldorf,” Handelsblatt, no. 26, February 6, 1990, p. 26.

[vi] Günter Herzog, “Editorial Notice,” sediment—Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Kunsthandels, no. 10: “ZERO ist gut für Dich” (“ZERO is good for you”), (Nuremberg, 2006), p. 7.

This made it possible to describe the close connection between Schoeller and ZERO in more detail in the years that followed, and to shed light on further projects. Time and again, his gallery provided a platform for ZERO-related presentations—including the joint presentation of the aforementioned monograph ZERO: Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Gunther Uecker by Heiner Stachelhaus with Econ publishers on May 12, 1993.[i]

[i] In the foreword to his book, Stachelhaus 1993 (see note 6) states with regard to the resonance of ZERO at that time: “An additional motivation [for writing this book] is that the interest of collectors, museums, and galleries in ZERO has gradually increased in recent years.”

Hubertus Schoeller’s enduring commitment to ZERO and Constructivist Concrete Art in general was also evident in his activities beyond the gallery. In 2003, the year his gallery closed, he established the Hubertus Schoeller Foundation at the Leopold Hoesch Museum in Düren, which holds his collection of Constructivist Concrete Art. In 2006, he was a co-initiator of the exhibition ZERO: Internationale Künstler-Avantgarde der 50er/60er Jahre (ZERO: International Artists’ Avant-Garde of the 50s/60s) at the Museum Kunstpalast, which was curated by Jean-Hubert Martin together with Heike van den Valentyn and Mattijs Visser—ideas for the exhibition were developed during a discussion with Otto Piene and Jean-Hubert Martin at the Schoeller Gallery.[i] As part of this exhibition, the black cardboard top hats that featured in Schoeller’s ZERO party were also revisited. The internationally oriented retrospective exhibition also acted as a major stimulus for establishing the ZERO foundation in 2008,[ii] whose Circle of Friends Schoeller chaired for many years. The enduring bond between gallery owner and artist is also reflected in the following statement, which Hubertus Schoeller recalls:

[i] At this time, there were further exhibition projects related to ZERO: the Lenz Schönberg collection was shown at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg from January 21 to March 26, 2006, and the ZADIK exhibition ZERO ist gut für Dich took place at the Art Cologne fair from February 15 to 19, 2006.

[ii] See www.kunstpalast.de/de/programm/sammlung/zero-foundation (accessed January 4, 2024); www.zerofoundation.de (accessed January 4, 2024).

This text has been translated from German into English by Gloria Custance.