Collection: Piene, Otto

Born 1928 - died 2014

Otto Piene, founder of the influential Zero Group in the late 1950s, developed an artistic career characterized by constant experimentation with various media, including kinetic light sculptures and installations, smoke and fire paintings, ceramics and monumental inflatable objects, which were very well received at performances and events worldwide. Characterized by the combination of art and technology, as well as an interest in rituals, performance and community experiences, his work demands the active participation of the viewer in the artwork. Piene was also an astute philosophical thinker and wrote important essays on art and perception.

Otto Piene (1928–2014) was born in Germany and spent the second half of his life alternating between the USA and Europe. For two decades, he directed the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His recent solo exhibitions include the Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2020), the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen (2019/2020), the Fitchburg Art Museum (2019), the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2015), the Kunsthalle Bremen (2015), the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2014), the ZKM, Karlsruhe (2013) and the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2011). Selected group exhibitions include the Centre Pompidou-Metz (2021), the Yayoi Kusama Museum, Tokyo (2020), the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2018), the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon (2017), the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2015), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014), the São Paulo Biennial (1985), the Venice Biennale (1971, 1967) and Documenta 6, 3 and 2 (1977, 1964, 1959). He has received numerous awards, including the Max Beckmann Prize, Frankfurt (2013), the UNESCO Joan Miro Medal (2003) and the Sculpture Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (1996).