INVITATION TO THE FIRST EVER ZERO EXHIBITION (aka ZERO 1)

Dusseldorf: Galerie Schmela, 1961

15 x 10cm, 2pp printed black on tan card. The announcement card for the very first gallery exhibition of the newly collectivised German Zero Group where Mach, Piene and Uecker exhibited under that collaborative title for the first time – although all three artists had been working individually and together prior to that date. For example, Gunter Uecker had shown as a solo artist at the Galleria Azimuth in 1960 thanks to the personal intervention of Manzoni just prior to another solo exhibition in Schmela in 1960 also) but by 1961 Uecker was prepared to work under an agreed joint manifesto.

On this invited occasion (5 July 1961) Uecker elected to perform a street action where he painted the pavement of the Hunsreuckestrasse, outside the gallery, white in front of a small invited crowd of art lovers.

After this event Uecker became more committed to the group and introduced aspects of light and movement into his hitherto somewhat static nail works. Recto to this card is a rough typographic design and verso: gallery details overprinted in purple. The Schmela Gallery had simply over printed commercially purchased blank postcards with the exhibition design. A rare document in fine, never mailed state and an essential addition to any Zero collection.