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PIENE Otto
Otto piene was born in 1928 in dusseldorf.
Piene began his studies at the Blocher School and at the Kunstakademie in
Munich at the age of 20. Two years later he went to the Kunstakademie in
Düsseldorf where he was enrolled until 1953. Then followed a four-year
degree in philosophy at the university of Cologne. Piene began studying the
element of light in art around the mid 1950s. He had exhibitions from 1955
onwards, first group exhibitions and, in 1959, his first one-man exhibition
at the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf. Together with Heinz Mack Piene founded
the group 'ZERO' in 1957. The group was later also joined by Günther Uecker.
Until 1961 the three artists published the art journal 'ZERO'. The group
organised numerous ZERO-exhibitions between 1961 and 1966. They exhibited a
'ZERO Lichtraum', a joint work of the three artists, at the documenta III in
1964. In the same year Piene accepted a teaching post at the University of
Pennsylvania for four years. He then went to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Cambridge/USA where he became professor of environmental art
and from 1974 to 1993 he was the director of the Center for Advanced Visual
Studies (CAVS). The Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund arranged the artist's
first retrospective exhibition as early as 1967 and he was invited to
present his objects once again at the documenta ten years later. Piene
became a member of the council of the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien in
Karlsruhe in 1990. Since 1994 he has been Director emeritus at the CAVS/MIT.
Otto Piene lives and works in Düsseldorf, Boston and Groton, Massachusetts.
Piene became known with his light-kinetic works, particularly the light
ballet, in which the artist tries to find a link between nature and
technology. His intense study of light, movement and space is also reflected
in his technically rather different grid and fire pictures the artist has
been experimenting with since the 1960s, as well as in his air and light
sculptures and his sky events.
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