Museum of Nothing
The NO SHOW MUSEUM is the world’s first and only museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of nothing in all its manifestations. Its collection includes works and documents from more than 100 internationally renowned artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, among them, Marina Abramovic, Joseph Beuys, Maurizio Cattelan, Marcel Duchamp, Ceal Floyer, Hans Haacke, Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Gianni Motti, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Santiago Sierra, Andy Warhol, and Rémy Zaugg.
Your support
Your support ca help write history: Your contribution will allow the world’s first and only museum of nothing to open its collection to the public and make it freely accessible for everyone. In concrete terms, your contribution will be used to develop a website for the museum where all content and information about works and artists will be available in both German and English. Contributions will also help to acquire the copyright for online use of images and documents.
A Huge Collection
The museum’s extensive archive is intended to be freely accessible. Thus the complete collection will be digitally recreated and made available on the museum’s website at www.noshowmuseum.com.
On display will be works, documents and artifacts of conceptual art, minimalist art, painting, performance art, photography, literature, theatre, film, and music. The collection extends over four floors, each floor consisting of two wings. The various tracts are thematically dedicated to different ways of approaching nothing:
- Nothing as Refusal: The Art of Doing Nothing
- Nothing as Annihilation: The Art of Destruction
- Nothing as Emptiness: The Art of Absence
- Nothing as Invisibility: The Art of The Imperceptible, The Unseen, and The Hidden
- Nothing as Reduction: The Art of Minimalism
- Nothing as Lacuna: The Art of Omission
- Nothing as Statement: The Art of Saying Nothing
- Nothing as Notion: The Art of Pure Imagination
Opening April 2015
The opening of the virtual museum is planned for April 2015, beginning with an opening celebration in Zurich. The celebration will include numerous events around the fascinating and many-sided subject, where exponents of the arts and sciences will attempt to unravel the meaning and importance of ’nothing’. Is it possible to think, grasp, or portray ’nothing’ — and if so, how? What role does the void of Nothing play in (astro)physics and theories about the origin and evolution of our universe? Why is there something rather than nothing? How do philosophers define the relationship between being and nothingness? How do writers deal with the subject of nothing? Where and how does ’nothing’ reveal itself in theater, dance, and music?
Membership
The NO SHOW MUSEUM is run by the SOCIETY OF NOTHING (SON). The society, based in Johannesburg, promotes the dissemination and distribution of nothing in science, art, and education. All board members work voluntarily for nothing.
You can become a patron / passive member of the Society of Nothing for as little as CHF 60 per year. In exchange for your membership you will receive the internationally recognized SON Member Card and updates about the society’s latest good-for-nothing activities.