Otto Piene, After the Rainbow, 1972, Serigraph, Framed

Otto Piene
Laasphe 1928 - 2014 Berlin

After the Rainbow, 1972

Color serigraph
black, red, white, 7-color iris print
signed and dated (19)72 lower left
limited edition: 114/150 lower left
Size: 99 x 69 cm
Frame: 103 x 74 cm
Catalogue Raisonné Rottloff 143

Model frame, museum glass

Authenticity will be confirmed in writing.

Otto Piene was born in 1928 in Laasphe, Westphalia, and grew up in Lübbecke. After military service and imprisonment, Piene began his studies at the age of 20 at the Blocherer School and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Two years later, he transferred to the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where he was enrolled until 1953. He then pursued four years of philosophy studies at the University of Cologne. from the mid-1950s, Piene began to explore the element of light artistically. He presented his work in group exhibitions from 1955 onwards, and in 1959 in a solo exhibition organized by the Schmela Gallery in Düsseldorf. In 1957, Piene co-founded the group "ZERO" with Heinz Mack, which Günther Uecker also joined. Piene and the other two artists published the eponymous magazine until 1961. Between 1961 and 1966, the group organized numerous ZERO exhibitions. In 1964, they were represented at documenta 3 with a "ZERO Light Room," a collaborative work by the three artists. That same year, Piene took up a teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania, which he held for four years. He then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA, where he has held a professorship in environmental art since 1972 and served as director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) from 1974 to 1993. A first retrospective of Piene's work took place at the Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund in 1967, and ten years later, documenta again provided him with a platform to present his objects. In 1990, the artist became a member of the advisory board of the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. Since 1994, he has been director emeritus at CAVS. Otto Piene lives and works in Düsseldorf, Cambridge, and Groton, Massachusetts. Otto Piene is known for his light-kinetic works, especially his light ballet, in which the artist seeks to establish a connection between nature and technology. His consistent exploration of the themes of light, movement, and space is also evident in his technically distinct grid and fire paintings, with which Piene experimented since the 1960s, as well as in his air and light sculptures and the Sky Events he staged. Otto Piene died on July 17, 2014, in Berlin.