1. The worthless, neglected, and unnoticed
'Upcycling' is a concept that is mainly associated with a contemporary, fresh way of dealing with existing materials and products. The starting point is that materials and products - the worthless, neglected and unnoticed - are used again and again. Sometimes for environmental reasons, sometimes from the point of view of aesthetics.
The artists of the Dutch Zero group, embedded in the broad international ZERO movement, seem to have invented the concept of 'upcycling' avant-la-lettre. Zero artists had a keen eye for re-use and the potential of non-artistic materials. Fabrics-of-the-roll, cotton wool, rubber gloves, for Henk Peeters par excellence was nothing too 'ordinary' or too little. Peeters wrote a text about the motives of fellow group member Jan Henderikse who had the same meaning for the other artists of Nul: "You could put the test to the test by stopping world production, even if it was only one day, and Henderikse would immediately hang his lyre on the willows!" And beyond the Dutch context was the interest in the unexpected attraction of the everyday, with the Accumulations of the French Nouveau Réalist Arman - also functioning within the broad ZERO context - as a clear example.
Outside the arts, in our daily lives, the meaning of 'recycling' and 'upcycling' depends on reuse and upgrading. Awareness is a key concept - of possibilities and responsibilities. With Zero-art from the early sixties it was no different. "I was one big eye, everything was beautiful", said Armando in the early sixties. Zero-artists saw the possibilities of the everyday, gave meaning to the meaningless and aestheticized the ordinary. Commitment was nothing less than a revolution, an innovative and emphatically contemporary art. And a certain responsibility was mainly felt by Henk Peeters, the 'democratizing' idea of cheap, 'upcycled' materials. "Art in the sense that everyone could afford it, that's what we wanted", says Henk Peeters: "Our works were all of nothing to make, a work was worth at most 3 cents worth of material. Making things worthless, no free of charge, that is my ideal, that is my background."
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The artists of the Dutch Zero group, embedded in the broad international ZERO movement, seem to have invented the concept of 'upcycling' avant-la-lettre. Zero artists had a keen eye for re-use and the potential of non-artistic materials. Fabrics-of-the-roll, cotton wool, rubber gloves, for Henk Peeters par excellence was nothing too 'ordinary' or too little. Peeters wrote a text about the motives of fellow group member Jan Henderikse who had the same meaning for the other artists of Nul: "You could put the test to the test by stopping world production, even if it was only one day, and Henderikse would immediately hang his lyre on the willows!" And beyond the Dutch context was the interest in the unexpected attraction of the everyday, with the Accumulations of the French Nouveau Réalist Arman - also functioning within the broad ZERO context - as a clear example.
Outside the arts, in our daily lives, the meaning of 'recycling' and 'upcycling' depends on reuse and upgrading. Awareness is a key concept - of possibilities and responsibilities. With Zero-art from the early sixties it was no different. "I was one big eye, everything was beautiful", said Armando in the early sixties. Zero-artists saw the possibilities of the everyday, gave meaning to the meaningless and aestheticized the ordinary. Commitment was nothing less than a revolution, an innovative and emphatically contemporary art. And a certain responsibility was mainly felt by Henk Peeters, the 'democratizing' idea of cheap, 'upcycled' materials. "Art in the sense that everyone could afford it, that's what we wanted", says Henk Peeters: "Our works were all of nothing to make, a work was worth at most 3 cents worth of material. Making things worthless, no free of charge, that is my ideal, that is my background."
continue >>>