ZERO: An international art movement, 1957–1966

In the late 1950s, a time of new beginnings, young artists in Düsseldorf were seeking a fresh start. In the aftermath of the war and during the years of reconstruction, they wanted to rethink art in a new and positive way – moving beyond pathos, grand gestures and the weight of history. They named their movement ZERO: the zero point from which everything seemed possible again – and at the same time the word from the countdown with which the rocket launches into space, into the unknown. In 1957, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, both graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts, opened their studios in Düsseldorf as a gallery for an evening and invited artist friends to exhibit together; Günther Uecker soon joined them. They worked without a set agenda, but with a shared conviction, and in doing so developed a new form of expression: instead of painting in the traditional sense, an art emerged in which structure replaced composition and movement, chance and light became the material.

Last edited on 21.04.2026