BASEL.- Otto Piene (1928−2014) aimed high with his art: not only did he literally expand his artistic scope into the heavens with floating works of Sky Art and media projections, he also viewed his works as contributions to a more harmonious and sustainable world. The exhibition Otto Piene: Paths to Paradise is structured thematically to trace the artist’s visions through his most important projects and series from his oeuvre.
Works from different periods and in different media are in dialog with each other and, in particular, with his constant practice of drawing. Alongside his Raster Paintings, Smoke Drawings, Fire Drawings, and light sculptures, the exhibition includes more than twenty sketchbooks, allowing for new readings of the artist’s oeuvre. There is a special focus on early immersive installations such as Light Room with Mönchengladbach Wall (1963–2013) and Anemones: An Air Aquarium (1976/2023), as well as his innovative experiments with television and intermedia such as The Proliferation of the Sun (1967) and Black Gate Cologne (1968). This show at Museum Tinguely is the first major exhibition of Piene’s work in a decade; the last retrospective was organized during his lifetime in Berlin in 2014. The exhibition will be on view in Basel from 7 February through 12 May 2024.
In 1961, Piene published his manifesto-like text “Paths to Paradise” in the publication ZERO 3. It begins with the words: “Yes, I dream of a better world. Should I dream of a worse?” This reflects his life-affirming, constructive approach and his unreserved belief in the potential of art to improve society. This monographic exhibition at Museum Tinguely foregrounds Piene’s wish to help shape a more harmonious, peaceful, and sustainable world.
Structured around recurring motifs and themes, the show reappraises Piene’s art by linking two periods in his oeuvre that have often been viewed as distinct: first Zero in Düsseldorf (1957–1966) and then his time at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). This approach also reveals how Piene’s oeuvre developed from abstract art, striving for purity as part of the new start after World War II, into an art that used technology and media to address a broad public.
In addition to Piene’s well-known, major works, Paths to Paradise features rarely seen works and unpublished documents. It is also the first museum-scale show to focus attention on his constant practice of sketching and drawing in connection with his paintings, sculptures, installations, performances, and media art. Thus, works and projects from key series and themes – including Raster Paintings and Smoke Dra- wings, kinetic sculptures, light installations, Sky Art, experiments with television and intermedia – enter into dialog with each other and with his drawings.
The exhibition underscores the importance of drawing and designing in Piene’s oeuvre, both in the narrow sense, on paper, and in a broader sense, going beyond the usual boun- daries of media – as when he used smoke and light, or even plastic inflatables, to draw shapes in the sky. Piene did sketch in a traditionally manner, for instance in the sketch- books he invariably had on hand, but he also experimented with technologies that were entirely new at the time, such as television broadcasts, slide projections, and even lasers.
The notion of “design” here also stands for the potential Piene attributed to his art: to foster the development of society, to overcome the divide between art and techno- logy, to counter ecological calamities, and above all to help create a more peaceful, united world. With his Sky Art, Piene also devised concrete political and symbolic projects like Olympic Rainbow (1972) and Black Stacks Helium Sculpture (1976), which both exemplify his community-based art deliberately aimed at a mass audience and positioned against an elitist isolation of the art world. The exhibition thus deve- lops along two distinct but tightly interwoven strands, one media-oriented and the other content-oriented.
The thematically structured exhibition offers visitors a cross-section of Piene’s work from the second half of the twentieth century into the twenty-first. Displays com- bining sculptures, paintings, drawings, and archival material (photographs, videos, documents) present the artist’s key themes across different media and creative peri- ods. In the spirit of Piene’s great interest in technology and new media, the exhibition will offer an opportunity to experience his sketchbooks in digitized form. The pre- sentation highlights the kinetic, animated quality of Piene’s sketchbooks that emer- ges when they are leafed through, doing justice in particular to his experiments with repetition and the effect of marker pigment bleeding through the paper.
Paths to Paradise also includes several rooms in which light projections or instal- lations with inflatables invite visitors to experience Piene’s art physically, in three dimensions. The show’s sections unfold in a sequence of eleven spaces that vary in density and atmosphere, ranging from intriguing black boxes to airy, light-filled halls, as presentations in white cube spaces alternate with immersive optical, kine- tic, and sculptural installations.
There is a particular focus on works from the late 1960s and early ‘70s, made during Piene’s transition from Zero to Sky Art, when he was splitting his time between the United States and West Germany. These works include The Proliferation of the Sun (1967) and Fleurs du Mal (1969), as well as intermedia works such as Black Gate Cologne (1968), The Medium Is the Medium (1969), and Lichtspur im Haus der Sonne (1974). Underappreciated works and materials recently discovered in archives will be on view alongside works that have rarely been exhibited. The show will also breathe fresh life into a number of works that have not been seen since they were first made such as Anemones: An Air Aquarium (Creative Time, New York, 1976/2023) and Windsock Sculptures (MIT, 1969−1970).
The curatorial approach emphasizes the ongoing relevance and impressiveness of Piene’s pioneering strategies of combining art and technology and of exploring art’s public, social, and environmental potential. Paths to Paradise asks what we can learn from Piene today. The exhibition invites visitors to rediscover his visionary art, beyond critiques of its naïve techno-enthusiasm and romantic idealism, as a tool for change and for expanding the limits of our imaginations.
Biography Otto Piene
Otto Ludwig Wilhelm Hermann Leonhard Piene was born on April 18, 1928, in Laasphe (Westphalia). In 1944, as a fifteen-year-old high school student, he was drafted into an anti- aircraft unit as a child soldier. Beginning in 1949, he studied fine art in Munich and then in 1950 at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf. In 1953 he also began studying philosophy and aesthetics at the University of Cologne.
Piene first came to prominence in 1958 together with Heinz Mack as cofounder of Zero in Düsseldorf (Günther Uecker joined the core group in 1961). In contrast to the darkness of the war and in opposition to the gestural painting of the time, Zero proclaimed a fresh start in art, oriented towards light, vibration, purity, energy, and the cosmos. ZERO soon became an influential network across Europe. What the ZERO artists, among them Jean Tinguely, had in common was an interest in visual perception, in the kinetic, and in a radical reduction of form. At this time, Piene developed early pioneering works like the Raster Paintings and Smoke Drawings, and he invented his Light Ballets.
Piene made further breakthroughs in his art in the late 1960s, becoming the first international fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) before succeeding György Kepes as its director in 1974. This second major creative period is marked by his invention of Sky Art, with one highlight being the Olympic Rainbow, which took to the sky above the lake in the Olympic Park during the closing ceremony of the Munich Olympics in 1972.
With his interest in combining art and technology, Piene became a pioneer of media art; in 1968, for example, he collaborated with Aldo Tambellini to create Black Gate Cologne, the first ever art production for television. Another milestone in his artistic career was Centerbeam, a monumental intermedia work created collaboratively by CAVS for documenta 6 under Piene’s direction.
Otto Piene died on June 17, 2014, on the way to prepare for a Sky Event that would take place on the roof of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin as part of the retrospective More Sky (Nationalgalerie ‒ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Deutsche Bank KunstHalle).
Museum Tinguely
Otto Piene: Otto Piene: Paths to Paradise
7 February – 12 May 2024
Exhibition curated by
Dr. Sandra Beate Reimann & Dr. Lauren Elizabeth Hanson
Curator’s Tour with
Dr. Sandra Beate Reimann
8 February 2024, 7 pm free admission
