In 1962 Dutch artist Jan Henderikse (*Delft, 1937) exhibited his untitled installation of beer crates at the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum, as part of the exhibition Nul. This first, broad presentation of the ZERO movement illustrated how artists had managed to move away from traditional conceptions of art, in particular from informal painting. The exhibition would make history, and not least because of Henderikse’s installation. In an illuminating artist’s text from 1963, Jan Henderikse wrote about his own work and the historical context with which he felt connected:

For the second time this century, the artist is occupied with everyday objects. The first in the Dada movement, which was mainly intended as social criticism. The new reality is concerned with the beauty and absurdity of the everyday object. Art will never again involve representation in the old sense of the word. Objects, ordinary as they may be, are taken out of their context and, by isolating them, presented anew. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly.

In the early 1960s, Jan Henderikse experienced a great affinity with the French Nouveaux Réalistes, although his work retained a certain 'Dutch signature'. The identity of this 1962 installation moves between a jaunty orientation to the everyday and the cool austerity of the grid, a crown jewel of the ZERO movement. In the beer crate installation, radicalism and genuine admiration for the new and the contemporary went hand in hand.

Henderikse’s installation made name as the first Dutch, industry sponsored artwork. A brewer was happy to collaborate on this free form of advertising within the walls of a prominent museum. The fact that the installation was dismantled and the crates were returned at the end of the exhibition, did not bother the artist; after all, there was a deposit on the empty bottles. It is this light-hearted provocation, questioning value and conceptions of aesthetics, that Jan Henderikse seems to have a patent on.

Jan Henderikse authorized two versions of this installation, the first of which is in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. This installation was shown in 2014-2015 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, as part of the exhibition ZERO. Countdown to Tomorrow. This second and last version of the beer crates installation was exhibited at the Städtisches Museum/Stadtgalerie Klagenfurt, Austria, in 2019.

Antoon Melissen (2022)