From ZERO to 2002

The Museum of Contemporary Art has extensively re-organized its presentation of works on permanent loan to the ZKM from the four Baden-Württemberg private collections Siegfried Weishaupt, Froehlich, FER, and Grässlin. Extending over all three levels of the museum on floor space amounting to 7,000 sq.m., the new show offers a many-sided survey of art from 1960 onward. It encompasses a total of 284 works by 88 different artists, and includes a large number of exhibits previously not on display.
The two upper floors are devoted to delineating central aspects of stylistic development in the work of painters ranging from Josef Albers and Mark Rothko over Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke to Albert Oehlen and Manuel Ocampo. Also on display are works by a number of contemporary sculptors (Franz West, Meuser, Tony Cragg, Cosima von Bonin, Heimo Zobernig), works on paper by Joseph Beuys, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol, as well as a seldom-shown video piece produced by Bruce Nauman in 1999: »Setting a Good Corner (Metaphor & Allegory)«.

The ground floor juxtaposes historical with contemporary positions by placing significant works of Minimal art by Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Carl Andre alongside individual approaches to sculpture, photography and installation by artists such as Sylvie Fleury, John M Armleder, Vincent Tavenne, Josef Schulz and Tom Burr in the 1990s.

The focal point of the show is a group of thirteen ZERO works from the Siegfried Weishaupt collection. Produced by Günther Uecker, Yves Klein, Otto Piene, Heinz Mack, Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury and other artists between 1958 and 1973, these works are presented on the ground floor (Court 1). Thanks to their pioneering work with light, space, colour and movement, the ZERO artists were a source of inspiration to many artists in Europe and the USA from the 1960s onward.

The five GUESTS invited to the ZERO presentation (Korpys & Löffler, Mischa Kuball, Claude Lévêque, Albert Weis) are artists whose installations and video works likewise illustrate the topicality and significance of the artistic issues raised by ZERO. »GUESTS«, the new intermediary series launched in conjunction with the show, aims to create points of friction in dialogue with the works and artists featured in the collections and to re-assess individual aspects. Thus, »GUESTS« builds a bridge between ZERO and art production in the present-day.