Conversations | Premiere | Artist Talk | Zero

good morning I'm Marc Stiegler co-director of Art Basel it is a pleasure and a privilege to welcome you this morning I know it's a little bit early during an art fair I know you probably saw a lot and have planned to see a lot but I think everyone will agree that it's we're totally worth making it out here for what I think will be a historical discussion with two legendary figures of the zero movement Hines Malkin Otto Pina with Hans Ulrich who in the time that I known him has gone from being someone who was resolutely contemporary to becoming ever more of a historian so I'm very happy that we could be part of ours Ulrich's ever-evolving history of the art world this will be an exciting series of events I hope that you can make it out not only this morning but to some of the other discussions that will take place on the following morning's of the show and last but not least I would love to thank the absolute art bureau which has been the presenting partner of this and will be also helping us by creating fantastic online documentation of this so if you happen to miss any of the following five mornings you can go home and watch it in the comfort of your living room and now I'll get offstage since you didn't come here to see me but rather to see them thank you very much mark thank you so very much and thank you all for being here this morning of course all our thanks go to Heinz Mac and Otto PNA for agreeing to do this conversation here today it's not the first conversation we do because we've recorded long interviews in the actual individual interviews in their studios before but this is the first time we record an interview together and it's also a little bit path of an ongoing research Daniel bambam and I are doing there we actually thought it could be very important to do a kind of portrait almost of zero as a movement through interviews through oral history a little bit in a similar way as REM colas and I have done it for the Japanese metabolism movement in architecture it's obviously an incredibly important moment for zero because it is a moment of much modern rediscovery it's a moment of global celebration of of zero it's a moment where nature retrospectives and survey shows of sales are planned starting at the Guggenheim then I took up you spell and the state of the museum and of course many individual shows of of the artists now to introduce Heinz Mack and dr. PNA would take an hour because they both have such extraordinary achievements and lists of exhibitions actually the work started of course before zeroed and the years together in zero and ever since many many works on the one hand in museums in galleries but both of them went far beyond the world of museums and galleries went into urbanism went into cities and into landscapes one of the things which is maybe important to say is also that the zero foundation has been founded and for those of you who want to find more information there is a website WWF and HDE where you can find many more informations on on their work and on their biographies and the list of other exhibitions now to begin with the beginning I thought because we're gonna focus today really on the several years of years two together what I was thinking that it could be very interesting to talk a little bit about before they all because you both already did work before zero both of your catalog resonance because I asked you in the interviews about your catalog resonance post of your catalog resonance at in before zero you made inventions before that and you both also were very involved in studying philosophy and of course also science very early in your lives which i think is a very important breach of what you have in common so I was wondering if you could tell us maybe both a little bit about the beginnings about your studies in philosophy and science and how you then came two out well it's a little bit complicated like for instance in a love affair just also a question like how did it begin and sometimes it had yeah a start without getting certain consciousness about owning arms you are completely right when you mentioned that before zero started we had been yeah engaged and we worked in the so part our sesame area and of course with some expression we did our very best to get some successful results but adult Jessica to mention that in my case in my personal case it ended up just beginning ended up in caps off and the catastrophic because I started to doubt I really didn't have any security anymore I felt absolutely secure in this situation and somehow I had a feeling like the whole development the whole evolution of art comes up to an end and everything but could have been done in the world of art had already been done and it took some time to cross over to get this situation of catastrophic feeling to overwhelm it and then perhaps much start this point which you call the beginning of the beginning and I already heard much sake just now we realized that art is like the title of the big out of here here in bail ambassador is unlimited zero really we started to become unlimited but that took some time yep and what about your beginnings my beginnings let's say delays the beginning of the beginning and that's the beginning of the beginning of the beginning in other words there is the tendency to say oh this artist has made master builder and he has made coops he wrote together with his friend hence mark and that's how we know him and that's how we know Group Co and on from there if I look at what I've been doing over the past so many decades I think I have been doing things when I was 20 there are as important to me nowadays then as the things that I've been doing when I was whatever 30 and I was 40 so I see things now as in the case of sky heart for instance that are related to things I did as a student at at the Art Academy in dusted off I made drawings convert somehow completely compulsively and not knowing exactly what I was doing of flying people the drawers are flying people to me the beginning of sky art and very important to me now and certainly as important as the beginning of the raster paintings or the beginning of moving things of the light ballet so for some reason first of all many people say this main does many different things and he's multi oriented multi has multi sites interests whereas I tend to think I'm still the same person I'm still the same person who does that than all these things and these things consist of drawings that started when I was 20 and I still draw and I still draw some things that are somehow related to what I did when I was 20 not now of course in between there's this big complex that's called zero and a big complex that is called zero did indeed start with my stencil paintings and the stencil findings led to two smoke joints and a smoked orange led to fire paintings but the stencil paintings also led to projections projections in how entire spaces rather than onto canvases and the projects has led to the light ballet and the light ballet led to performances so I I tend to think that the total but I considered to be a total his s interesting is certain specific things and I would like to reserve myself the right to say I am NOT just grass the paintings I'm not just group zero and quite a few things not to mention very much that has to do with art science technology then also I also have spent a considerable part of my life as a teacher and many people in the beginning of our artistic activities by we I mean and smoke as well as I a teaching played two very big part and teaching continued to play a big part because I ended up at MIT being a the director of a very important Institute I was essentially concerned with integrated integration of art science and technology and in a certain way that's where I am now as well and my favorite pastime is sky hurt now one thing which is interesting is that obviously many artists now our younger generations have disinterested zero for example Olafur Eliasson very early on about 10-15 years ago already told about his interests in sea and he said he was so interested in how you both have this connection early on to philosophy to to science how you both go beyond to feel somehow of pulling knowledge and when I interviewed remedy to interview with Heinz Mac you you you told us that actually philosophy was very important light metaphysics light mystics and the same in the interview without openin philosophy was a very important part can you maybe before we then talk about the beginnings of zero just talk a little bit more about this philosophy background which i think is interesting well general question came up many many years ago around 1956 57 how at the war that was a general question and this question had been discussed on a very high intellectual degree perhaps influenced by our philosophical education at the university but at the same time I don't hesitate to mention this truth there was never an attempt to develop a kind of theory it was just the intention that the element the elements the substantial elements of what could be at this spectrum had to be discussed in hundreds of discussions and these discussions happen not only between auto FINA and me Lester akka was involved if client was involved man Sony was involved Fontana who could have been our father but he acted like the fan of us we are discussed more less similar problems and the question was taught it was directed to trust the future we had not been so keen on learning about artistry also we did this at yes when we had been students but it took some time and in these discussions art song was a very positive attitude in front of modern development in front of very high advanced technology and all these artists had now sentimental mood in front of such problems and devotion in a certain kind a very historical anticipation going back to the to the Renaissance where clearly was formulated art without science is no art and science without art is no science the courts own a business of this kind of cuts or businesses only concentrating for aunt Agatha's heart and tracklist nowadays we'd really have a lot of integration in terms of phenomenons we have a very very striking relationship but still very rich in miracles and it were taking another time to learn about others to give first short comment and zero zero was an area it was a time between 1957 and 16 2016 7 just with other words just 10 years are spent for xeroform who cooked and peanut just the same and in this time we had been really keen on doing experiments so experiments did have a circulation to to science and to technique and by being ready to start from the very beginning it's always senseful to start with experiments even a man like Picasso was very fond of experiments now you found that together zero and then in five years later in 61 capturing but obviously you met before zero was founded and when we did the interviews miss positive it was very interesting you both told me about these first encounters and you told me about how you visited each other studio because it was the studio the next door to each other but what I never asked you is how you met do you remember the day when the two of you met for the first time yes we met we met in school so to speak the school was the strategy cost economy and this all happened in Munich at the Art Academy before and Heinz mark came straight from the abbey tour he does no time getting into the art and getting it in a very straightforward fashion the the philosophy came into the picture because it was part of the courses of studies that we were supposed to take towards the various examiner necessary to become a academic art teacher and one of these these courses courses meaning that the range of studies necessary unnecessary one other was philosophy so we did study philosophy in studying philosophy we became so interested in philosophy that both Heinz Marc and I decided that yes we would study philosophy not the limited amount that you have to have as Europe as you're an art teacher but philosophy as a major course of a major range of studies so that you would have we could have been philosophy teachers at institute of higher education even without the art so it became very important and because it became important we studied philosophy and got drawn into it got drawn into it increasingly more and more and I do not want to describe too much of a detail there but I can tell the tale with without exaggeration that the way I feel my most important teacher in my youth artistic and intellectual was not so much an art teacher professor professional artist but a philosopher a philosopher Google ebooks who said one sentence that has never left me he said that how come that we enter a museum that we enter a concert that we enter into a school of higher learning that we leave renewed we knew we leave energized we leave with a heightened sense of being a heightened sense of work and intentions and ideas and here it was the the the word energy in the phenomena the phenomenon of an energy which is true for the gods as well as for the sciences as well as for the technical arts the technical sciences engineering energy is the point that is needed is the force that's needed is the phenomenon that's needed to do any one of these all creative meaty yes I'm going to say I'm not exactly in a parallel situation to what ought to feel just declared of course philosophy and all in our mediation and thinking about problems belongs to my blog and to my world too but as soon as possible I decided to get dismissed from philosophy because I wanted to award that series will conquer me or the theories will get power over mud my artistic world I wanted to decide just with inclusion institution into its own intuition intuition but should be done in art in tuition into CERN was the main yeah the main role and afterwards when and that it stirred the situation hunter today I got into my studio without theories but if I have some thing discovered which is completely new to me then of course I start to think about it I ask myself what have you done here and which kind of connection does or relations assist but I just got done which kind of relation does this have to the whole situation of art and you mentioned for instance an artist who really got very much influenced by zero and perhaps especially influenced by hand smack he now became world famous you can repeat this name to adult liked to do to to recite his name so much but anyhow he also was ready to explain or to declare in fact I got influenced but but by what had been done into zero time and what had been done by had smoked so now I'm more than 80 years old and I have to realize that a younger generation is going on with ideas and energy and sensitivity and sensibility and with hopes which we share from 10 years and I hope there will be a dead two that are still alive and we can compare we can really compare the Kentucky stand for glycine but if the turn havoc on the stand alone cuz the heart attune will bear to be through the ocean and the mom relationship will exist the more I will get enthusiastic about the fact that I'm not totally alone on the other hand it belongs to the existence existential substance of art existence to feel alone it's a dialect situation on one hand completely alone if you go to your studio and working and at the same time you go to barrel to the Art Fair and the not alone anymore so now the studio Lisa is a very important point that you bring up the studio and speaking somehow about the studio because everything started in the studio you visited each other studio then you started to do these exhibitions in the studio like pruning Mack penis allen teen for example of an early one and when we researched exhibitions about time you came again and again across these exhibitions in your Studios because they didn't have a temper allottee of a month or two months ever much shorter why not just one not exactly and so I was kind of wondering if you can tell us a little bit about these what happened in these studios about these exhibitions because it's really out of that but then does a whole movement grew well they destroyed to just kind of concretize it a little bit hence mark and i weren't just fellow students at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf from there we want moved into power thousand owns a stake which was a former workshop for mechanical metal works and it also had been a former studio of be honest piano teacher so I was a multi multimedia situation there because she had to leave the studio and she left behind a grand piano in miserable shape and we played the grand piano kind of every day every night it was a very important factor and the grand piano led to such things as the first night ballet music I made for the first night Molly I played so there were several interests coming together on certain impulses coming together that actually we share and hence maca and I had these night talks at you know to two o'clock in the night but in in because our studios in black power stars are known as exit you were next to each other so we could we could him talks through the wall and that's how this is how this togetherness emerged and that's how we did things together including the Avant Hotel on the Avenue Cheryl and the night exhibitions were shared with other artists some of them from the capital infinity which we were for a short time were members of and they literally just lasted for one night and they were the first contemporary heart presentations in Dusseldorf there was no gallery yet that happen a year later and that was another gallery that happened yet another year later one was through calories France France if my job Gia Villa and the other one was gallery Sheila and before they appeared we had the the night exhibitions and the night exhibitions were the first meeting point of various artists various theorists various critics to happen with free access and free talk that featured or that favorite the latest developments as we saw them in our work and here was Hans mark and here was I and we did them together and one thought on in this chapter the one of the participants in the night exhibition was para burning who was in California and from a painter and Peter said shouldn't we do a publication and we said yes yes to a publication and we talked about what this fabrication what kind of name this publication could could have and then after a few thinking's back and forth in spirals and in serpent ions this publication we decided was going to be called zero and then things kind of focused and got concretize and became zero but not all at once many other things happen first but we did it together and there was important the community that emerged was zero now we come to zero and it was actually here at a puzzle that we a couple of years ago interviewed Albert Hofmann he was almost 100 years old and he the man who discovered LSD and as often scientists locate very precisely an invention benoit mandelbrot told him it was a rainy day and he suddenly on a black part he saw fractals and about haven't told us also was a sunny day and he discovered LSD and in terms of this moment of zero do you remember the day when because i spoke to both of you about it when you found the name when you had this necessity to to do a group and i mean speaking to Luca who joined four years later you could told me that he found it very interesting because there was a sort of a loneliness of the artists in the studio and the necessity of finding a dialogue with others and that's obviously something it's so interesting for our time because now things are even more optimized and I think there's a lot of desire again for maybe how groups can work and studying zero is also learning from that so I was just wondering if you can tell us both about these Epiphany how does they all invention came about yes of course as soon as a certain even tried to call it friendship a certain relationship between various artists come up in this moment we felt something like a certain kind of community a certain kind of identity in our feelings in then in our ideas and this duplicity of ideas comparable between different artists was a great a great matter it was really something very striking and very interesting like given gifts and presents to another person to feel in the beginning I felt totally alone but as soon as I met artists like for tunnel if plan months only Anton Anton Castellani and working really and showing off all these artists and countries because I was the one I'm part of that I was the one who met mr. oak am just on the road and at Houghton why don't you come to us we are we have friends we are group and but not of a kind of group like an institution it was more just feeling there is somebody doing his work not very far away from what I'm doing with my work and this neighborhood disc I'm reaching this friendship was a big thing and then of course the question came up how should we call it in front of the public what we are doing here and this idea of zero was really a very luckily bummed because I repeated again it was a word for unlimited approach of unlimited future and of course Davos also this general common idea that whatever we are doing should be as simple and as striking as possible with other words we started with very very very very strong elements just a point just a line just one color just one cut of a canvas all these guests just had been very very young even the element Rd volunteer Bassam al-asad Allah and unlucky cuts in exhaust colostomy whatever very elementary and they excluded a lot of possibilities right yeah exactly and of course all this was done with very very high sensitivity and Sensibility and there's a lot of accusers and so she brought Zillow of course did have some relationship truth to the fact that in those days they started to reach the moon and counting down from ten to nine eight seven six five four three two one zero and the rocket was going up that was really a kind of parallel situation and I made a collage of a photo and at this photo you could see the rocket going up to the sky and on top of this rocket I have written down with printed letters zero so zero was starting against the moon this really was a big thing and mr. Lister was so kind he painted this collage as a painting and gave it as a gift to me unfortunately it got burnt in a big burn in a big fire in my house so I don't have it anymore anyhow so it was really this relationship to modern time so technique so we are again to the fact art without science of his without technique doesn't work and technique without a doesn't either work and it was my great idea of course I could not being realized because I was very much involved with slide inside reflections on and I thought if they would put on top of the moon just this silver cover to forum everything was checked in such a silver shiny foil technical reasons for that and I thought if she could do it in a certain babe that if man will put a laser just Tatsu moon the whole world would see there is a large reflection on the moon perhaps a really tiny point but this would have been but moons provides in English really from Baba's roof yeah improved pools that human beings already had stepped on the moon at a time when the Chinese people did not know this and they thought it's just science fiction yeah Attica Scott Suzanne de banda Teresa feel good about the term Bertha von shaft anomalous for future Susan Technic technician and filaments which remote London on tuition uh non-concessional Dean the server 2008 as a gap the CR June 14 busy hotel and an a paperweight and shows a dedicated email on shaft is our kitchen rs.4000 of cushy informing the program so that's a dress for to exist here to the Akita sauce aldo80 a key to the mode on guten rich good colleague at least at astronomy at certain speed come out a lot of inherent yeah the search candidates for the music question before tea of Justice feet of us undersea how exactly I think it would be great but of course because we're gonna have a Q&A and so we can then at the very end but anyway no problem we can open it to your questions at the very end and you can ask all your questions for fines and auto I think it would be great to hear from auto a little bit about the beginnings of zero and how the world came about when we spoke you mentioned that initially there was a doubt that it might be too close to me he listened to negativism and that you dropped it but then 20 minutes later you said again zero and I'm obviously interested to hear more also about this tabula rasa moment because I read this book which Gustav Metzger told me to read which is an incredible book by Fred Kaplan it's called 1959 and it really is about all the inventions which were made in the late 50s is about journey to outer space it's about the journey to the moon it's about all the revolutions of the sixties Kaplan's as well actually invented in the 50s so it would be great to hear more about these of them okay in 1957 I spent the whole summer making stencils meaning punching holes into metal for cardboard panels and besides watching my daughter Claudia being born my my time for four months consisted of punching holes and these stencils became the stencils with which I made the master paintings and from the master paintings to small paintings from the small paintings the fire paintings there was a development there from one step to the next step and there was the vocabulary that came out of that and the vocabulary became one of the parts of a major part of the vocabulary of group zero and the median with which this was possible to project for instance was light so light became that the power became the force became the world in which our work happened mostly from then time on and today to this day indeed that is still the major medium and it brought into the studio our studio people from the media media meaning mostly television and the television brought their instruments and the instruments were light instruments and the light instruments led to being curious about the light instruments did and they projected and they made a light ballet of a very strong of variety and when we published zero three which was already as the name says the third issue of zero people from the media very alkalyn came and brought their instruments and and then and thought the first into the studio and then onto hurtin strands aware the gallery issue a lie was located and light became larger became reaching over greater distances and became a hint and a habit to deal with light on it on a large scale to lead deal with light on a scale that would reach many people and that became a very important step and the lights instruments and the light institutions became both people the people of for instance davinia and they said can we do something with your vocabulary can we do something with your your instruments by that time I was in the United States and I had met many friends that worked with light and worked with media when I first came to United States and 19 1960 the first cows el proyecto came on the market and at the same time the first photo pack video camera for artists came on the market so he was a was a Hulk instrument areum that led to the use of new sophisticated instruments by artists and the result was multimedia a work that didn't exist until then and the entire Soho Louis oh-ho became inflated I might say with all these instruments and all these performances okay it's a lot to hear what Otto Peters just mentioned and declared light was really a very important matter and it's germ active today a kind of synonym for not even a synonym of hand smack so all the articles in newspapers all start with the same word max light men and so on and so but what I was what I would like to explain to what happened to Western science and visa technique going up to the moon it was a kind of expansion of the space and it belongs really to the artistic point of views to expand the space it started with the work of if client it started with the work of Fontana fences and started with our tool to take instead of material like stones stainless steel colors we used light lights a physical light as a medium as a message tool to expenses face and this expansion meant a lot to me too because in 1959 I developed my so-called Sahara project and it got published 1961 and in this project I attempted to describe the possibility that art and even human lives will totally change if you are going to a kind of reservation to a landscape which is untouched as a moon untouched by civilization and whatever should have been done in this Sahara area added some experiments and expeditions in early years and now it's up to date in a picture in Los Angeles concerning art and length art and so on what I did was to try what will happen with my objects in terms of light reflection in terms of being a kind of instrument like a music like an instrument for light if these instruments that means the objects of my heart are placed just in the middle of Sahara and get their light from the Sun in a very high intensity and I even went to the Arctic on two experiment also what does light mean if the whole surrounding is untouched by civilization nowadays we are in a completely different situation nowadays the art is expanding all over the world and civilization in a global way and it's really difficult to touch this player a room or space without this kind of influence by heart and the space problems had been really very important and in a big discussion vision physician of the University in Germany who is studying about a trauma Adam thinks it taught me Mac you are happy you just have four dimensions in my son science I even need seven dimensions so there is an expansion of space tool and last word an expansion of space means at the same time an expansion of time and that obviously could lead time to superstring theory yet eleven eleven dimensions but you mentioned light and obviously light is a key element of zero but one thing which I found interesting he said when we spoke you mentioned that you had also other names which you consider because obviously Sailor wasn't the only name and you rejected some names but and I loved his idea that you initially I also wanted to call it dynamo because had you decided to call it dynamo I think it was because of the football club no Dynamo Moscow and that obviously leads us to energy and daintily he wanted to call it dinner frankly yes and therefore we introduced the dynamo as a as a nexus in zero three and he John was he was very much enthusiastic about Dynamo Moscow so this was the global expansion so to speak that was happening in the arts being very much opened choose from a other bit phenomena that were going on in the world including the political world including the the world of economy I have to add a few things one is that we went to the United States invited in several ways and in 1964 several invitations from universities and other institutions came together for me and I decided it's time to go now if there's say tyrant again now you go and I went to United States and I went to the new Institute when you Institute at MIT and the Institute at MIT was called Center for Advanced visual studies MIT many of you now is forgive me if it's an exaggeration but it makes the point MIT is a leading Technical University of the world and MIT became the first in university to house an institute for the integration of art science and technology and in after a few years I became the director of this Institute after many other developments had had happen at MIT one was that in 1969 I went to Hollywood I was invited there to work on projects for the use of technologies and addressing space so I went there and worked for two months on little graphs little graphs instead of making additions instead of making work for the trade I made the little graphs of a portfolio of 25 images and the name of the portfolio of lithographs was sky art so the sky our portfolio became my book of images from which I have worked ever since this is a long time ago and I still work from that book of images that I have expanded an arm from and on to other media at the same time the the media became increasingly interested and I founded a theater in New York City with my New York friend Carlton Bellini and without a Tamburini we started a theater called Black Gate cologne and the Black Gate presented in a fairly regular fashion was was announcements in the and in the papers performances by various artists that dealt with media including light and and video and instruments of television and in the black age I played a piece that I had made called the pro-lifers the polyphagia excuse me the poly forest of the Sun the proliferation of the Sun was played 22 times in New York and event in the vac 8 and then in many other museums and any other institutions and the proliferation of the Sun was a media performance piece and it inspired the wdr the very people to play it in their brand-new studio there when a new television studio and in that television studio we played life life the proliferation of the Sun and she became the first major theater piece anywhere before anything like that happened in New York City only half a year later the first media piece was developed and I was one of the participants and that media piece was indeed called Black Gate cologne it's now a staple so to speak in the libraries in the the media libraries of many libraries and universities at home so developments happened not only in the minds of the artists not only with traditional media not only towards expanding into space but also in absorbing so to speak by the artists the new median entirely new world of media that dealt with new technology and new performance aspects now you mentioned America and obviously there was a early exhibition of zero at the home advised gallery in 57th Street sort of very early on was an important presence of cero in New York both of you emigrated to the United States and Otto you state ever seen so as hands you came back I think after a couple of years so it's a very complex long relationship you both have in the United States and yet also there has been many decades between this how advice show and denial show was happening where there was also a gap of exhibitions maybe interesting to talk a little bit more about that so how worst gallery was very important one and I really appreciate to remember that Howard was very kind to me he was a Jew like all dealers in New York are Jews because of the education because of their passion for modern art and so on I must have mentioned this and as a German of course they had been contradictions unavoidable but anyhow he was so kind to me and told me you get $1,000 a day and a year sorry once I was done here and afterwards we will see if we can sell something or so and I like to measure this because at this time all well known well replicated galleries in New York and somewhere else had been devoted to X question ISM and German art is rich in Expressionism but since a possibly 20 years the whole art world starts to forget about the fact that besides German Expressionists I don't corrupt names now besides Expressionism nowadays they're still the tradition of the bowels cebause spiritual ideas belong to modern art to any how and how it was was in this situation and a kind of exception in New York because compared with all the other galleries he was really a very keen very brave personality and he started to realize that movement kinetic work means a lot at that the whole television area becomes really important for her to succeed for interpreting one thirty Seconds there is a show in Berlin at the Milligan we now you know fun Howard wise gallery right neurologist yes that's was very conscious of German gallery now a six existing in New York to said you have two galleries one in New York one in Berlin yeah given a certain Omar's to how it was and what I would like to say then he went on to develop art in the field of tradition and electronic techniques which or what has become so important now in modern art TV as a creative medium Criminal Court TV as a creative medium worsted mother at our Academy that's one part of you and the other one is in 1968 luckily a very good camera like you a very good camera and a good legacy editor anyhow they made a movie about my work a one-hour movie and I gave the title to it I called it Taylor Mac and but was really exciting this movie had been shown not at midnight as usual modern art is presented it was shown just right after giving the night news at eight o'clock so everybody in Germany had been confronted prism with art and what I would like to mention truth this kind of drug like my Telemark movie does exist only as a movie whatever you can see in this movie does not exist in reality anymore it was just a virtual a virtual exhibition and now we discuss even as a possibility because there may be if you agree I will mention that some very important museums will start now with show with a solo show about zero that's the Guggenheim Museum good start next year afterwards the gopis bow in Berlin will have a big zero show and this show zero show will be transformed to the stately Museum in Amsterdam and that means a lot for the zero movement now that such three institutions - very good shows about zero and we discuss just right now we discussed the possibility it should be possible it was one of my ideas too and I'm sure atropine and agrees with it totally that we will join to these three big exhibitions a first one but existing only in terms of internet so it will become a virtual show and that part we very strict for the Art Basel tool here you see artists in reality but more and more worthwhile norm use Eames like the good name of the Museum of Modern Art in New York they are going to to develop the idea of Internet exhibitions that's another consequence of what we started in the zero to another step forward and I also want to make a short statement there are a lot of artists of colleagues which are not interest in acceptance by the orange they are just happy if some big collectors take care of them and then they don't care about other things but in my case in my situation I am very happy and sufficient if many many people have the chance to see what I'm doing and if they accept it so this is another point of view where has other artists just um yeah related to a mean ology of spectators now there are many many more questions we could take from day one could have an entire new interview of course about you using such technologies very early I mean moholy-nagy one said that it's almost went from the invention of a new material to him as an artist using it so that could be an interview for the future one of the other things want to talk about is obviously the very international dialogue Davos I mean when you mentioned this data leak it's not the first time it goes to the study because of us the famous new little exhibition with all the connections there and there was connections to Eataly to Japan it was very early on was a very global dialogue you had I'd like to say something - no - the today to add science technology which is still the hot topic in many ways away from the traditional arts but obviously we have document on many of the people that the visitors here came here straight from the documentary the document was important for group zero and the documentary was important for the group of art science technology because it was the document where I developed a concept for contribution by cames MIT the first time that an educational institution had an important piece at the document as it has a major piece there he wasn't very popular but it was very very much a breakthrough and it was called center beam and center beam was essentially celebration with media with other technology of new media of new media in the arts and became a coherent piece and was very important it was a piece that was made by 14 artists five graduate students and five scientists so this speech was a group work at Dettol cooperation the result of collaboration of artists scientists and engineers and the document that was standing on his head for a while for four years and now it's become a very famous piece that goes through the gain after so many years since 1977 it's been through so much literature that Mayer more and more literature that it becomes but the fact it becomes that it was there that it has been that it was exciting and there was a pioneering step into new worlds of art that went beyond the traditional arts but was based in some ways even it was based in some ways also on the traditional arts because the traditional arts also merge with the heart science technology new developments and that's something that should also be remembered as something very important because these are not really shrilling contrasts these are this whole thing is a matter of evolution the evolution that we are witnessing and that we are all participating in and that we all we all welcome very much it's not a moment to open it for your questions if you've got questions mainly questions of course related to zero as this is the focus of today's conversation the question here in the first row can we have a mic louder plz he on the on the Left thank you my name is ash Ella and I'm from this Lafayette the gallery and my question is you told a lot of the beginning of 0 and I have two questions first could you tell something as well how it came to an end of say ho and secondly what is your opinion are the ideas of zero with this time finished or are they still valid and offered often importance for today after ten years of cooperation in collaboration between different artists mainly between Otto Pina Gunter and me it came up to the idea that each personality developed his own power and this competition became a little bit dangerous so we got jealous in front of each other even a physician what is he doing and so on and so on and there is a general opinion tomb after 10 years there was the danger that the whole group idea became a kind of institution and an institution doesn't belong to artists somehow it will touch the freedom of one personality the freedom of being responsible just for me alone or not being responsible for my colleagues for instance that was one special meaning and I was the one who told my friends that stops our matter and let's do it in a very optimistic way so it was celebrated in one and the police told us more than 1000 people participated in this celebration affair this festival so 0-2 named but on the other end I'm still hand smack I do have my own identity and I didn't stop my book 1967 I went on with my work with similar ideas and so on and so on and the only difference nowadays is that the art dealers want to sell and to buy only objects which just belong to the time between 1957 and 67 as soon as zero work has happened to modulated like in my case they are not that much interested that's topographers the affair true and I must tell you concerning art fair or good smart I'm only interested in the first word the word foods and out and marked set up to you thank you do you want to say something about the end of their I just want to say about the end of zero this was not a group decision this was a decision that hands Mac made and was curious about it because he'd made it well I was in America I was far away I didn't I wasn't asked so - mark announced to the press this is the end of zero which I think to this day has not come yet because zero goes on and zero goes on for instance in the work I'm doing now at MIT it's Center for Advanced theater studies we have many new ideas coming into the field of Arts who the help of artists and without the help of engineers and scientists working together and that is definitely had to be at a database of zero because there was the lonely enterprise when we started but became more and more of collaboration and I said in addition to that I said zero is a matter of friendships but and that's how they all happened the basis for zero was friendships assume relations human relations that coincided and that that integrated themselves so to speak and no matter how he thinks about some other things about these friendships still do exist and have they they moved that time this year and that's Christina because here and that Roberta Shia is here and that we have a gentle mentor in Hansel Robles who likes to watch these greater developments that happen beyond and above parcels and and specific developments as a general trend and one is that really the people they created people of many many different avenues are indeed working together and I could find an example I don't want to necessary want to do that but I think all in all the fact that we're here is to me a very very positive developments part of the development of the evolution but in terms of friendship I must mention to the trillion artistic fan of magnet of our to period that means kentucker he's not anymore in such love with zero he took a certain distance some people of love in jobs or freedom in terms of freedom and for me it's really quite understandable for him it's the same like it is for me too and for him to zero is a part of my life but it's not my whole life I just spent ten years in 60 years so yeah the other half of century belongs to another world in my case and that's the same to occur I may say this just Eden if you don't mind do we have other questions for our own hands there's a question here in the middle yeah sorry it's a site plug but at the moment I do have a show of autos in London and there are various catalogues that in front of auto with a very interesting conversation between hands or ik and auto which will give you the story again a bit more of what we were talking about earlier but this show does show that there is life after Z arrow and it's a work all whatõs of the last 50 years going up to this year or last year with ceramics as well but it has light ballets inflatables paintings as well as works on paper and ceramics thank you and that leads me to a question I should ask you both because we spoke about the oh you both obviously very active now what are you working on in 2012 can you tell us about what's happening right now yesterday before you came here in your studio well there are artists around and one has to respect it which I love in just one idea like a gardener very fond of one cactus and he takes his whole life to develop his love to the cactus but there are other artists like me or like Picasso adult hesitate to mention this for them the work is very rich in different styles and different activities and in my case I'm not only in love of this cactus I have a whole garden a Paradise Garden I have a Botanic Garden I like the whole landscapes like palm gardens all this with other words my God is very rich in plants and I've been concentrating on differences and at the same time I'm a sculptor and a painter so what I'm going to say I admire and at the same time I do not understand that a Greek like castellani did one is the same work for half a century always repeating his work never never doing any any change it's always the same work done by Dan Yager a painter like Grovner you paint he invented one idea and for his whole lifetime is always resisting on this one idea this means for me not unlimited art it means for me limited art just to give this statement true I'd like to say what I'm gonna do later this summer currently work is going on and two silos that are part of the farm that my wife and I have as our living territory and one of the silos is going to be reappropriation and it will be a sound silo in the sound silo polities is a neighbor and friend of mine besides being a grandson of remot he's he will build a bill that will sound that will be housed in the silo and there's another silo which walls will also be finished this the summer late this summer there will be a light silo and the light silo will play a light ballet and the light ballet will play the play of a star called the yeshiva star which at some point I made for a large exhibition we did out of MIT out of civs has a celebration of the use of traditional religious in this case Jewish elements in contemporary art interpreting the Old Testament so the yeshiva star is going to be the inhabitant of the other silo and this is in a certain way a celebration of the integration of the Arts not just the integration of about science technology but the integration of the arts working together on art on art pieces do we have other questions for modern Heinz the question here my name is Peter dipkin I come I'm born in Berlin before the war Mike I have an appeal on the worst violin eaten English Lindsey by the support Jesus was his father the sea was it single when English I see house they aren't happy no hammock for stranger after tomorrow the opinion Tavares was provided fathers and the guns and of it see I'm the fallacy of Obispo you feel about a little man I take a cliff in Uganda Luka what I give see what if if it's a speech here come the example of assistive although many cars is the other side mr. speaker go there grant ominously stars his sign a person here fired sunshine okay and that is import Tyler sorry first and that's why I'm ozone and surely the tiny one zero is try village okay let's keep cos kind fine it was never like with situationism that you had these mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion whiskey d'Ivoire in this sense it wasn't a movement like the situations you said it was more an alliance right and you see those told me that in the interview and I mean one of the things we didn't talk about and that's really my last question which is the question about the manifesto because one thing which is obviously important in relation to every movement is the manifesto and all the historical guards in the twentieth century produced a whole catalog of manifestos the neo of all girls in the 60s again produced manifestos and we live now in a time where we have less manifesto so I think there is a great interest in looking at manifestos very alpha manifestos are also a bridge between art and literature because they're literary documents so is the zero manifesto a literary documents and when we did the interview with you with Daniel beyond bond he was quoting at the manifesto 0s digital native oyster alpha and cos tone cigarettes he say or the amount is only zero zero is devised abuse today order him leave of zero the nafs' a lovely stuff I would say or etc a very important document could you tell us about how you wrote this manifesto and about the zero manifesto as a literary document in clay fairs and I am cafe yeah at one point but at the same time we hesitated to develop a kind of theory and instead of using the language of science we preferred the language of poem of poetry so it was a kind of data mood and walking through the roads of the town we developed this idea just the collaboration of one poem and I still like the idea that because we had all these symbols of word words it shows up says yes world in which we placed our dreams the poem was kind of manifests tation of our dreams too and the how zero time was a time of dreams and possibly life goes on and I hope it will further go on as a stopped knows this is so good do we have a very last question if now I do have a very last question which is you just mentioned about dreams now dreams play an important role in their own in your work in general you've got a lot of who topic projects you both have a long catalog of atopic projects of dream projects I just wanted to ask you maybe at the very end of this panel to tell us about one project in your work which we which will be your dream to be realized a dream project and unrealized yeah utopia I do have a dream that now and it's still in in future but not realized until now it's the idea to erect nine still a that means nine bonds pillars approximately seven meters high and this group of plants pillars should be placed in an important town just now since 2-3 weeks they are discussing it from venice and of course on the marcus space nothing has to be allowed to be placed there but there are other places in venice where it could be realized and to give a very short comment i'm so rich in projects and he is rich in projects and other art is true it's always still the danger doesn't it doesn't get realized why why why because because because there is no money around no project oh no they'd say no sponsor who will pay for an idea which cannot be sold somehow thank you very much what about your dream right now the dream I'm working on has been becoming kind of real ever since I saw the building first I wanted to do the sky event on on the roof of the what's now called an aura not scenario gallery in Berlin and they are very serious considerations and very serious negotiations going on on about that subject is because there is as usual disturb a poli-sci under certain exams and there are many many many York institutions that that make us work work make us work harder for what we'd like to realize as our dreams but that's one dream another remark on the word is that the founder of Fabius the scent of advance be under status at MIT Jura Kepesh always used to do the word of the metaphor of dream then our dreams should be realized our dreams should be formulated and so on so forth and I got really annoyed by all this dreaming so I said the the main work of a real institution at the real University with real ambitions is to realize dreams and the the program of this institute should be to realize some of the dreams that not only one artist not only to hunters but the artists of this institute the fellows they should realize and that some of these dreams get realized is evident in the fact that we need center himself he was an impossible project and we did it some time so I had the hope that I will be on the roof of the Mies from the world of the National Gallery in Berlin and realized my dream of what will fly off that very solemn beautiful wonderful institution perhaps a last word if I'm might tell you that 2,000 years ago the philosopher Seneca declared only a person who is awakened this far can realize what he has dreamed of you unmatched a vocalist Baathist can first even before the advantage should not be a more wonderful conclusion thank you so much for both of you thank you all very much for being here thanks a lot you

Channel: Art Basel

Views: 8,421

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Art Basel, Conversations

Id: 96lynQzdi9I

Length: 81min 12sec (4872 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 27 2012