Mona’s latest exhibition a stark departure from the museum’s standard offerings

MONA has opted for a more minimalist vibe with its next major exhibition, shining the spotlight on an art movement founded in post-World War II Germany.

MONA is going for a more minimalist vibe with its next major exhibition, with ZERO set to open in June during Dark Mofo.

Started in post-war Germany by a loose collection of artists led by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, the avant-garde Zero movement was a reaction to emotional, colourful abstract expressionism, with artists instead using simple forms, monochrome colour, everyday materials and light, motion and space to express themselves.

ZERO guest curator Mattijs Visser — founding director of the international ZERO Foundation — said Zero is “one of the most significant, yet largely forgotten, art movements since World War II”.

Spazio Elastico, Elastic Space, by Gianni Colombo, will be part of Mona’s new exhibition ZERO.

Based around the theme of “vibration”, Mona’s ZERO exhibition will bring together artworks by the movement’s founders and followers, with many of their original installations to be reconstructed in Australia for the first time.

The exhibition will include work by famous French artists Marcel Duchamp and Yves Klein, plus artists from Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Venezuela and Japan.

“I’m told this is a departure from my obsessive attack on the myth of art as culture,” Mona owner David Walsh said.

“The Zero artists believe art is culture, but they didn’t mind being entertaining, and they didn’t mind being wrong.

“ZERO fits well with our raison d’être, but that’s not why it’s here. It’s here because we couldn’t get anything else.”

An Otto Piene work from Pirouetten in Brass.

Replacing current exhibition The Museum of Everything, which closes on April 2, ZERO will open on Saturday June 9, as part of Dark Mofo.

Entry to the grand opening party is free. Go to www.mona.net.au to register.