1949-1953 studies of
painting and art at the art academies Munich and Duesseldorf;
lecturer at the fashion school,
Duesseldorf
1952-1957 studies of philosophy at the
Albertus-Magnus-University in Cologne,
MA
1957 co-founder of
the group "ZERO" together with Heinz Mack; first grid-paintings
inspired by Yves Klein
1958-1961 edition of the magazine "ZERO" together with Heinz Mack
1959 "Lichtballette" (light ballets) and "Rauchbilder" (smoke
paintings) with relation to elemental energies of
nature
1960 experiments
with Multimedia-arrangements
1963
together with Guenther Uecker and Heinz Mack
spokesman of the so-called "Neuer Idealismus" (new
idealism)
1964 visiting
professor at the University of
Pennsylvania
1965 first single
exhibition in New York
1971 commission
for sketches for the artistic arrangement of the opening and the
closing celebration of the XX. olympic games in
Munich
1972 chair for
Environmental Art at the University of Cambridge,
Massachusetts
1974 appointment
to director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in Cambridge/Ma. and
professor of Visual Design for Environmental
Art
1977 participation at
the "documenta 6" in
Kassel
1989-1990 chairman of the advisory
council of the minister for science and research of the
Land North Rhine-Westphalia
1994 honorary doctorate (Doctor of Fine Arts h.c.) of the
University of Maryland BC
1996
Sculpture Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New
York
In 1957 Otto
Piene founded together with Heinz Mack the internationally
well-known artist organization ZERO, which Guenther Uecker also joined
later and which understood itself as reaction to the
informal/gesticulatory art (Art informel) predominantly at that time.
ZERO replaced the abstract expressionism by a reduced and controlled
art. Since 1960 Otto Piene created smoke and fire paintings in a
consistent analysis of the topics light, movement and space, in which
he changes, blackens or even burns his canvases. Fire, light and colour
join together: The destructive traces of the fire form residues on the
picture surface. Their beauty and expression are still supported by
poetic-associative titles.
print
recommend this page