Otto Piene (* April 18, 1928 in Laasphe; † July 17, 2014 in Berlin) was a German artist and co-founder of the artist group ZERO. He is considered a pioneer of light and fire art as well as sky art actions.
Otto Piene was born in Laasphe, where his father was the founding head of the Laaspher Gymnasium, and grew up in Lübbecke. After graduating from high school in 1947, he studied painting and art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1949 to 1950 and at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf from 1950 to 1953. Between 1951 and 1964 he worked as a lecturer at the fashion school in Düsseldorf. From 1953 to 1957 he studied philosophy at the University of Cologne and graduated with the state examination. In response to abstract informal art, Piene founded the artist group ZERO ("Zero Point of Art") in Düsseldorf on April 11, 1957, together with Heinz Mack, which later became internationally influential. Günther Uecker joined the group in 1961. He took on a visiting professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in 1964. From 1968 to 1971 he was a fellow of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), founded in 1967 by Gyorgy Kepes. He declined an offer of a chair at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart in 1971. In 1972 he became Professor of Visual Design for Environmental Art at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which appointed him Director of the CAVS in 1974, which he headed until 1994.
The predominant idea when the group "ZERO" was founded was a completely new beginning in painting, starting from the "zero" level, and the inclusion of light (and shadow) and - for Piene - fire in artistic creation. Mack and Piene disseminated their views in the magazine "ZERO" until 1961. In 1959, Piene designed light ballets and smoke pictures with reference to elemental natural energies, in which he referred to the fumage of the surrealist Wolfgang Paalen, who died in 1959 and to whom he dedicated a work in the same year. The traces of fire and smoke are important elements of these works. He also experimented with multimedia combinations (1960). Piene is particularly known for the light ballet and other light-kinetic works. In addition, due to his intensive engagement with light and movement, he created air and light sculptures. One of Otto Piene's well-known work cycles is entitled "Blue Planet". Piene is committed to preserving our Blue Planet by demanding: “Keep the Blue Planet green! / The Blue Planet should remain green!” Until 2009, Otto Piene created the trophy of the International Blue Planet Award of the ethecon Foundation (Ethics and Economics) as a unique piece every year on the basis of this motto.
