About Otto Piene
Otto Piene was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Groton, Massachusetts. In 1957, Piene and Heinz Mack founded the group ZERO, consisting of artists who wanted to redefine art after World War II. In 2008, Piene, Mack, Uecker, and Mattijs Visser created the international ZERO foundation. Piene created these Rauchbilder ("smoke pictures") as a reference to elemental natural energies and the Fumage of the surrealist painter Wolfgang Paalen, whom he dedicated a work after Paalen´s death in 1959. From 1968 to 1971, he was the first Fellow appointed to the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), founded by György Kepes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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