EPOCH ZERO

How does someone who has voraciously collected art over the last 50 years think, speak, and live?

Since the mid-1960s, charismatic collector Gerhard Lenz and his wife Anna, over 50 years, have acquired more than 600 artworks from over 50 ZERO artists worldwide. Together, they hold one of the largest art collections from the Epoche ZERO movement, an art form that sought to distance itself from traditional art forms and terms to start at point zero. As a result, the collection represents an outstanding artistic monument of truly European format.

Along the way, their passion has created one of the most important private collections of post-war European avant-garde art. Gerhard Lenz, whose youth was marked by the turmoil of WWII, found solace and purpose in these artworks. In his words, “‘ZERO represented an encounter with myself, a new awareness of seeing, a new beginning after the war, a deeply spiritual approach to things. It became one of the essential dimensions of my life.”

In this film, we explore how art has always been a medium of international and intercultural exchange for Anna and Gerhard Lenz and how they formed friendships with many artists, musicians, and writers from all over Europe. Yet, at the same time, they have also strived to make ZERO art accessible to the broader public, staging numerous European exhibitions.