Addis Abeba IX, 1972
Otto Piene

The unique life’s work of Otto Piene (1928–2014) is characterized by his original fire image, his extensive light installations, and his inflatable sky sculptures. Otto Piene was at the heart of the avant-garde  “ZERO” movement, which he co-founded in 1958 with  Heinz Mack  and  Günther Uecker  and which was the international art scene’s avant-garde movement par excellence until the end of the 1960s. Otto Piene is also considered a key exponent of kinetics, and in many of his works he grappled with movement and light in a space. The artist was awarded the German Light Art Prize in 2014. Subject matter around light and dark as well as new beginnings and endings are key to Piene’s works. His efforts to dissolve artistic boundaries made Piene a visionary trailblazer for new art trends, including land art for example. Today Otto Piene is considered one of the most important artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. ► See our special focus on “ ZERO ” here.