EIN KLEID, MONOCHROM. ZERO and Fashion
16 April – 02 July 2023

Fashion designs by Viktoria Lorenz, in front of the ZERO-House. Image and Credits: Johanna Sophia Spahn
Opening hours of the exhibition:
until July 2, 2023, Sundays 1-5 p.m.
June 2-4, 2023, each day from 1-5 p.m. (as part of: strike a pose. Festival for art, fashion and style)
Fashion show featuring Viktoria Lorenz’s ZERO collection in the exhibition:
Saturday, June 3, 2023, 2 p.m. & 4 p.m.
Public tours:
Wednesday, May 17, 2023, 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, June 14, 2023, 5:30 p.m.
When art meets fashion… On the occasion of the ZERO foundation’s fifteenth anniversary, it dedicates an exhibition to the relationship between ZERO and fashion.
The project includes an exhibition in which original works by ZERO artists such as Enrico Castellani, Lucio Fontana, Yayoi Kusama, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker and Lothar Wolleh meet contemporary scenography and current fashion creations by the young designer Viktoria Lorenz.
For the first time, the exhibition fans out the theme of fashion through both original “ZERO clothes” and cross-references to materials from the ZERO archive. The photographs, articles, and documents presented show, multifaceted relationships between the postwar artistic and fashion avant-garde. Did you know, for example, that Lucio Fontana also designed dresses that even his colleague Nanda Vigo liked to wear on festive occasions?
Highlights among the exhibits include an evening dress designed by Yves Klein for the architect’s wife Anita Ruhnau for the opening of the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen and an early shoe object by Yayoi Kusama. The legendary “ZERO dress”, which was an important part of these spectacular performances during the ZERO demonstrations of the 1960s, will also be on display.
In keeping with the spirit of ZERO – always emphasizing the performative nature of art – the exhibition will be enlivened on two dates by fashion shows by ZERO-inspired fashion designer Viktoria Lorenz.
With Ein Kleid, monochrom, the ZERO foundation brings the art of the 1950s/60s into a stimulating exchange with contemporary design, scenography, sound collages, and offers a young team of curators and artists the opportunity to look Back to the Future,” says Barbara Könches, director of the ZERO foundation.
The renowned fashion theorist Barbara Vinken, Professor of General Literary Studies and Romance Philology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, will delve into the topic of ZERO and fashion in a guest lecture on October 2, 2023 at the ZERO House. A subsequent publication is planned



“a field of possibility between the author and the viewer”
Barbara Könches, director of the ZERO foundation, in an interview about ZERO on the digital platform infra
Credits:Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker, Amsterdam 1962 © Photo: Raoul van den Boom, Archive of the ZERO foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany.
In this detailed interview, Barbara Könches, director of the ZERO foundation, talks about the beginnings of the famous avant-garde, the influence of Lucio Fontana, and the special relationship between artist and recipient at ZERO. The interview with curator Lucija Šutej was published on the digital platform infra, a young magazine that deals with different areas of visual art. Read the whole interview here: https://infra-magazine.com/2023/02/18/zero/