Armando; Henk Peeters; Schoonhoven - NUL - 2011

In a new state, a rare multiple exhibition catalog featuring, among others, Henk Peeters. This exhibition was held from September 10, 2011 to February 12, 2012. The exhibition was realized in close collaboration with the ZERO Foundation, Düsseldorf.

This offered multiple was stitched in a small edition with white thread through the NUL, cut across it.

On the occasion of this exhibition, the exhibition catalog Zero (Mack/Piene/Uecker) – Nul (Schoonhoven/Armando/Henk Peeters) from the equally titled exhibition at the Haags Gemeentemuseum in 1964 was reissued as a multiple, i.e., a reprint.

This little book multiple was sold together with another multiple, a transparent plastic bag that Henk Peeters used for his water-bag reliefs which are partially filled with water; see the last series of photos as an example.

Dimensions of the booklet: 23 cm x 18 cm.

Background information:
“The world will change profoundly.” Henk Peeters (The Hague, 1925) said this more than once, a statement with which he expressed his deep wish for a communist society. That socialist society did not materialize, but Peeters remains an idealist. Together with Armando and Jan Schoonhoven, he founded the Nul movement in the Netherlands. He also maintained close contacts with the international ZERO movement, including Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana.

In art, everything revolved around banishing the personal signature of the artist and using everyday materials to elevate daily reality to art. Peeters produced work with cotton wool, feathers, hair, and he even “drew and painted” with smoke and fire. In the Willem Cordia cabinet of the Gemeentemuseum, this autumn there will be, for the first time, a solo presentation of Henk Peeters with work from the 1960s. Moreover, a large installation with little bags of water will be specially re-created for this occasion; the installation was also seen at the successful international ZERO-0-NUL exhibition in the Haags Gemeentemuseum in 1964.

ZERO and The Hague:
Peeters was a pivotal figure in the international ZERO movement in the 1960s, and thanks to his efforts there were large-scale Zero/Nul exhibitions in the Netherlands, including at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, in the city where the movement had its flowering period. He distributed and published manifestos of Nul and ZERO, and to this day Peeters remains a reference in research and historiography of ZERO and Nul.

Accessible and understandable for everyone:
The everyday is elevated to art; Peeters believed in the synthesis between art and life. He wanted art to be understandable and accessible to everyone. That was also the ideal of Nul; Armando painted with lacquer and Schoonhoven with cheap plastering plaster, all to weaken the higher status of the artwork. Peeters also used materials that did not require personal treatment; with cotton wool, feathers, hair, smoke and fire he created work that lacks a personal material handling by the artist, but that—through its texture and relief—can still convey a strong sensibility to the viewer.

Democratic principles:
A deeply rooted democratic principle underlies the art, the choice of materials, and Peeters’ life philosophy. The socialist ideal with which he was raised in his family appears to be a major driving force behind all his activities. And there were many. Besides being an artist, Peeters was also an educational museum employee, teacher, typographer, creative therapist, curator, organizer, activist, television maker, and advisor to social institutions.