Otto Piene by Lothar Wolleh

'Silver Fire', acrylic and burning on linen by Otto Piene, 1973, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu

Otto Piene (born 18 April 1928) is a German artist.

Biography

Otto Piene was born 1928 in Bad Laasphe and was raised in Lübbecke. Between 1949 and 1953 he studied painting and art education at the Academy of Art in Munich and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was lecturer at the Fashion Institute in Düsseldorf. From 1952 to 1957 he studied philosophy at the University of Cologne.

He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania beginning in 1964. From 1968 to 1971, he was the first Fellow of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), founded by Gyorgy Kepes. In 1972, he became a Professor of Environmental Art at MIT. In 1974 he succeeded Kepes as director of the CAVS, in which position he served until 1994.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County awarded Piene an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 1994. In 1996, he received the Sculpture Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York. Piene lives and works today in Groton, Massachusetts and Düsseldorf.

Works

In 1957, Piene and Heinz Mack founded the group ZERO. In 1961, Günther Uecker joined the group. Beginning in 1959, Piene created the works Lichtballette ("light ballet") and Rauchbilder ("smoke pictures"), referring to elementary natural energies. Piene exhibited works at documenta in 1959, 1964 and 1977.

Otto Piene continues the practice of "smoke pictures" through today. Fire and smoke (their traces) are important elements in these pictures. He experimented also with multimedia combinations. In 1963, together with Günther Uecker and Heinz Mack, he became spokesman of Neuen Idealismus ("the new idealism"). Piene is also noted for exploring new uses for broadcast television. In 1968, along with Aldo Tambellini, he produced Black Gate Cologne, which is cited as one of the first television programs produced by experimental visual artists.

In addition, Piene arranged the German pavilion for the 1967 and 1971 Venice Biennales. In 1985, he exhibited at the São Paulo Biennial. For the closing of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Piene created the sky work Olympic Rainbow.

References

• Busch, Julia M., ''A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960's'' (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
• Radford, Georgia and Warren Radford, "Sculpture in the Sun, Hawaii's Art for Open Spaces", University of Hawaii Press, 1978, 95.

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