ZERO was a german group of artists founded 1958 by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene. After the second world war they saw postwar art as “freighted with an excess of ballast”. They wanted to have a new beginning, an hour ZERO, which was meant to be free from everything that was in the past.

They began to make mostly monochromatic pieces of art that were meant to be completely separated from nihilism or any dadaistic works.

The group disbanded in 1966 because the artistic and biographical paths of its members diverged.

the image is a black and white photograph with a square aspect ratio looking up at a person in the middle of a barren landscape wrapped in what looks like aluminum foil reflecting the sun. The contrast is very high. The gray sky shows a few clouds stretching horizontally across the photo.

images via Creative Commons