Otto Piene
now in our gallery
Otto Piene: "Desert Winter"
unique piece - 1992 -1994
technique: Tempera on paper
100.00 x 150.00 cm
price on request
The German artist Otto Piene was internationally recognized as a pioneer of light and fire art as well as sky art.
Early on, he rejected any connection to the tradition of the panel painting and found entirely new means of expression: Light and movement in space were his means of design, whereby he used fire and air in particular, but also other materials across genres.
Incorporating the energies of nature and technology, he painted "smoke" or "fire" pictures and "grid pictures," installed "light ballets" or "spaces," and staged "air" or "light" sculptures.
With these works, he had a decisive influence on the development of new art movements, such as media art or performances.
Piene studied painting and art education at the art academies in Munich and Düsseldorf from 1949 to 1953 and philosophy in Cologne from 1953 to 1964. In addition, he taught at the fashion school in Düsseldorf from 1951 to 1964. With Heinz Mack he founded the group "ZERO" ("Zero Point of Art") in 1957, which Günther Uecker joined in 1961. Until the dissolution of the group in 1966, the artists often exhibited together. In 1964 Piene finally went to the USA and accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Pennsylvania. The following year he moved to New York. In 1968, he took a teaching position at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. The Institute appointed him Professor of Environmental Art in 1972 and Director of CAVS from 1974 to 1994. From 1964 he received numerous national and international commissions and awards. In 2014 he was awarded the first "German Light Art Prize“.
For more information about this work of Otto Piene, we are of course at your disposal. You are welcome to view the artwork in person in our gallery - by appointment only.