Otto Piene

Otto Piene was a leading German artist who specialized in abstraction, kinetic and technology-based art.

Alongside Heinz Mack, they established the legendary artists group ZERO in 1957 which included Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely and Lucio Fontana. The group sought to redefine art after WWII specifically rejecting many of tenants of Abstract Expressionism.  

Over the last few years there has been a renewed commercial and institutional interest in these artists, notably the “ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950‘s-60‘s”, at the Guggenheim Museum in 2014. Many of the aforementioned artists, particularly the Italians, have become exceptionally valuable. 

As for Otto Piene, he is best known for his innovative signatureRauchbilder (smoke pictures), where he would apply solvent to pigmented paper and light it on fire. He would use the residual soot to develop images, using the traces of smoke and fire as elements in these works. He represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in both 1967 and 1971.