Christian Megert

Christian Megert (1936) is one of the main exponents of the ZERO movement, which was the world’s most formative avant-garde movement until the end of the 1960s. His ZERO phase laid the foundations of the artist’s international reputation.

Megert’s mirror pieces abolish the hierarchy between the productive, active artist and the initially passive observer, in favor of an intended interaction that the artwork produces. Regardless of whether Megert’s works are in closed pieces or involve the entire space as an installation, one thing they all have in common is that it is almost impossible for the observer to behold Megert’s mirror objects without seeing his or her own reflection and perceiving the surrounding space.

 Christian Megert, in his manifesto “Ein neuer Raum” (“A new space”):
“I want to build a new space, a space with no beginning or end, where
everything lives and is prompted to live; simultaneously quiet and loud, still
and animated.  [...] Try to find a space with no beginning or end or borders.
If you hold a mirror in front of a mirror, you find a space [...] with unlimited possibilities, a metaphysical space.”

► Find out more about Christian Megert and his monumental edition “Spiegel im Quadrat” (“Mirror in a Square”) in our artist focus!

► Are you interested in ZERO? Then read our special focus on the ZERO movement now.