ZERO

Moritz Lindur calls for nothing less than an equally radical new beginning, whilst pursuing a fundamentally contrasting approach.

Far from being depoliticised, the works of this self-taught artist spring from an attitude that regards the private sphere as inevitably political and makes politicisation – or at the very least, a response to the subject matter – almost unavoidable for the viewer. In doing so – free from any institutional constraints – he works across genres and employs a formal language that, in its aesthetics and means, repeatedly draws on the written and spoken word.

In terms of both form and content, Lindur’s works leave no doubt that the artist is aware of the increasingly pervasive multiple crises of an era in which ever-larger sections of the world’s population live in precarious circumstances, whilst a numerically small elite accumulates ever greater wealth. This impression is reinforced by a manifesto, written by Lindur himself and reproduced as a take-away for all visitors to the exhibition, in which Lindur, for the first time, not only highlights injustices and makes them visible, but also actively seeks solutions and puts them up for discussion with a view to collective reflection and implementation.

Lindur’s works speak of and for a working class that has long since ceased to be captured by the Marxist concept and no longer wishes to identify with it, so stigmatised does everything associated with this working class appear in the polished, high-gloss world of social media and virtual reality. The former ‘Working Class Hero’ finds himself in a society where work is not only no longer valued, but has also lost its value-creating character. The Hero has become Zero, a ‘Union of the Overperforming and Underachieving’. All the more urgent, then, is the need to regain awareness of a precarious class identity* in global digital late capitalism, in which the gig economy and neoliberal isolation have created a society rife with burnout, so preoccupied with avoiding being crushed by this fragmented labour and class order that there is no room left for a critical reflection on one’s own situation, but perhaps just enough for a little self-care – self-optimisation disguised as mindfulness, aimed at increasing productivity, both professionally and privately. This imbalance becomes all too clear in *I am not replaceable* (2026), which, in the truest sense of the word, holds up a mirror to this society.

In the series *Carte Blanche* (2026), Lindur transforms conversations with patients suffering from burnout into large-format paintings based on the corresponding transcripts. Only individual words are discernible; other passages appear to have been generously redacted, reminiscent of blacked-out official documents and thus also alluding to the stigma attached to mental illness in a society where such conditions are linked to individual failure rather than to a question of their systemic causes. What remains are zero points on a white background, on a blank page, with the potential to serve as a starting point for a new beginning – perhaps even healing? What is striking is the common theme of reference to community in relation to these zero points of potential new beginnings. Time and again, a return to the social environment, a plea for help, and a breaking free from isolation appear to be crucial.

Healing often requires a radical decision to break free and perhaps equally radical actions, as a zero point in the sense of a starting point for rediscovering one’s own capacity for action and self-efficacy. And so, with his work *Zero is Everything* (2026), Lindur calls upon each individual to undertake such an act of liberation from isolation. Whilst the act of tearing down a wall with specially crafted and engraved hammers may well seem rather performative in the context of an exhibition, this very act embodies the potential that *ZERO* seeks to convey: the potential for collective rebellion against a system of isolation.