Otto Piene

Otto Piene (1928-2014) was an eminent German artist and a significant figure in 20th-century art history. As a co-founder of the ZERO movement, he had a profound impact on the development of experimental art, particularly in the realms of light art and kinetic art.

Piene was born in Germany in 1928 and embarked on his artistic career during a time of renewal and exploration following World War II. In the 1950s, together with Heinz Mack, he established the artist group ZERO, which ushered in a radical shift in the art world. ZERO was a response to abstract expressionism and the tendencies of informel. The artists of this movement aimed to create a new art based on reduction, silence, emptiness, and a return to simplicity.

Alongside Heinz Mack and Günther Uecker, Otto Piene played a crucial role in steering the ZERO movement towards the exploration of light and movement. He experimented with materials such as air, fire, smoke, and color to create unique atmospheric and immaterial artworks. He devised sculptural installations employing light as a medium and developed kinetic artworks that were set in motion by wind or other natural forces. Piene employed innovative techniques to engage the viewer in his artworks and generate an immediate sensory experience.

A central concept in Piene's work was the idea of the "Raum der Stille" (Space of Silence). He aspired to create a space where the viewer could find solace and detach from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Through the use of light and transparency, he fostered an atmosphere of contemplation and meditative engagement.

Piene was also a pioneer in the fusion of art and technology. In the 1960s, he began incorporating computers and lasers into his artworks, developing a unique form of light art. He founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he taught as a professor and established a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists, and technologists.

Otto Piene expanded the boundaries of traditional art through his experimental approach and pursuit of a new art form. His contributions to light art and kinetic art have inspired and influenced numerous artists. By fusing art, technology, and nature in a singular manner, he has left an indelible mark on art history and remains a significant figure in the context of contemporary art.

Otto Piene (Born 1928 in Laasphe, Germany - 2014 Berlin, Germany)

From 1948-1950, Otto Piene attended the Blocherschule and the School of Fine art in Munich, and then moved to the Art Academy in Düsseldorf. In 1957, he took his state examinations in philosophy at the University of Cologne and worked in art education at the same time. His first grid paintings arose during this period--monochrome structures with partial protrusions that create an irregular relief. Piene organized the first Evening Exhibitions together with Heinz Mack in his studio in the Gladbacher Straße in Düsseldorf that gave rise to group ZERO, which Günther Uecker joined in 1961. Between 1958 and 1961, Mack and Piene published the magazines ZERO 1 through to ZERO 3 containing programmatic texts and, in the third edition, a good deal of visual material with contributions from over thirty artists from the ZERO circle.

Towards the end of the 1950s, Piene performed his Archaisches Lichtballett (Archaic Light Ballet) and developed his first smoke drawings, which were followed by mechanized light sculptures, environments and fire paintings. In 1962, he set up his first Salon de Lumière together with Mack and Uecker on the occasion of the NUL exhibition at the Stedeliik Museum in Amsterdam.Two years later, the joint group ZERO contribution to documenta followed entitled Lichtraum - Hommage à Fontana (Lightspace - Tribute to Lucio Fontana) which was presented in the attic of the Fridericianum. This was one of three appearances by Otto Piene at documenta (in 1959, 1964 and 1977 respectively).

In the course of the 1960s, Piene experimented with multi-media performances as well as with light, smoke, fire and air, i.e. helium sculptures. In 1964, he took up his first visiting professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; one year later, he moved to New York. At the same time he designed light sculptures for the new theater in Bonn followed by several "Kunst am Bau' Art in Architecture) projects.

In 1968, his first large-scale sky event Light Line Experiment took place with over three hundred polyethylene hoses over three hundred meters-long, illuminated and filled with helium, that seemed to float weightlessly in the sky. A year later, he launched Susan Peters into the sky in Manned Helium Sculpture. In 1974, Pine became Director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which he duly expanded in the fields of telecommunication, lasers, video, holographs, sky art and environment art. Since the early 1980s, his painting has combined his smoke and fire compositions with the grids from the ZERO period and from 1998 onwards Piene developed light spaces for several museums, including the Kunsthalle Bremen and the Leopold Hoesch Museum in Düren. In his later works, ceramics have become increasingly important, featuring shiny metallic gold and silver glazes, as well as grid-like surfaces. In 1967 and 1971, Piene represented Germany at the Biennale di Venezia; in 1985 he participated in the Bienal de São Paulo. Otto Piene is considered today to be one of the pioneers of light art and sky art.