Zero group artists

DEFINITION

A movement in Japan begun in 1952 by avant-garde artists who asserted that "that every work of art is created from nothing." Founding members were Kazuo Shiraga, Akira Kanayama, Saburo Murakami and Keiko Tanaka. Also known as Zero artists were westerners Otto Piene, Gunther Uecker, Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana whose commonality, like the Japanese, was signing off on the past relative to artistic "techniques" and starting again at 'zero'. Sources: AskART biographies; artnet magazine, "Starting at Zero" by Michele C. Cone.