Book Description

"Palazzo delle Papesse Contemporary Art Centre presents a major exhibition showcasing the German movement, Zero Group, and the origins of kinetic art in Italy, opening on May 29th. The selection of works on display covers the period going from the late Fifties to the mid-Sixties. The curators, Marco Meneguzzo and Stephan von Wiese, have focused especially on the founders of Zero Group: Otto Piene, Heinz Mack and Günther Uecker. The same years saw the beginning, in Italy, of a series of related artistic movements - such as Azimuth and the Gruppo T in Milan, or the Gruppo N in Padua - which will be represented in the show through a wide anthology of works. The retrospective aims to provide a portrait of the moment where the paths of the three German artists met and joined, originating one of the most interesting artistic trends to see the light during the second half of the Twentieth century. At the same time, the show as a whole intends to provide an update on the artistic results the members of the group independently achieved after their separation in 1966. To this purpose, each of the three artists will display a work specifically produced for the Papesse show. Moreover, the exhibition also showcases the works of those Italian artistic movements that, while collaborating with the Zero Group in Europe during the Sixties, developed their own, autonomous artistic narratives. The exhibition takes its first steps from the origins of the Zero Group in Germany, acknowledging the explicit references of those early works to artists such as Manzoni, Klein and Fontana; it then moves on to Italy, highlighting the close affinity of the German group with the dynamics of Italian artists of the early Sixties, and the motivations behind kinetic art and programmed art."--Kunstaspekte website.