As co-founder of the artist group “ZERO” and a pioneer of international light art, Otto Piene is considered one of the “great avant-gardists of German post-war art” (Zeit Kultur). In the mid-1950s, when the German and European art scene was primarily dominated by Informalism and Tachism, Otto Piene and Heinz Mack dared to try a new approach in 1957: They called for a more reduced, purified art, cleansed of individual subjectivity, which they understood as a synthesis of nature and technology and which, in their view, should not only evoke emotions but also appeal to the viewer's rationality. They wanted to counter the dramatic, expressive, and often gloomy images of contemporary Informel with a luminous, quiet art. Piene writes: “Disturbed by the strange tendency of contemporary art toward opaque darkness, I began painting pictures in 1957 that were intended to reflect light in the most perfect purity possible. They were white and yellow and made light visible as a force with quiet constancy.” (quoted from: exhibition catalog Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker. Zero, Hanover 1965, p. 127). Over the years, “ZERO” brought together artists such as Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Jean Tinguely, and Jan Schoonhoven. Each artist had a significant influence on the art of the “ZERO” group and received essential impulses for their own artistic work.

Starting in 1957, Otto Piene created his first so-called grid paintings, which, due to their semi-mechanical production and bright colors, met the demands expressed by the ZERO movement. Piene's goal was to create a painting of light, elevating the element to the actual content of the image: “My paintings should be bright, brighter than the present world.” (Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker, Zero. Der neue Idealismus (Manifest), 1963). They are created almost mechanically, without the artist applying the paint to the canvas with a brush. Instead, he punches small holes in various constellations, either as rhythmic stripes or as vibrant circular formations, into metal or cardboard plates using a perforating tool, through which he then presses oil paint. The paint thus finds its way onto the substrate, which has previously been primed in the same color, in the form of small, raised grid points that correspond to the plate's perforations. In their multitude, these dots, which Piene calls “individual forces,” cause the respective work to vibrate and oscillate as soon as light strikes the grid, whether daylight or electric light, and is reflected by the bright color. By incorporating the natural energy of light, Piene creates a force field intended to transfer energy to the viewer and arouse sensations. Piene and the “ZERO” artists deliberately use colors in their paintings that reflect particularly well, giving them high light and energy value, especially shades of white, yellow, silver, and gold.

In the present “Rasterbild” (Grid Picture) from 1959, the artist’s innovative creative power, his understanding of art, and the ideals of the newly founded “ZERO” group were realized. The grid pictures and the screens they are based on inspired Piene to create further innovative works. In the same year, he developed the “archaic light ballet,” in which he used light to ‘paint’ on walls and in space, using lamps and foils to shine light through the holes in his grid screens. In the same year, he ventured into another experiment with his “smoke pictures,” passing smoke and soot through his grid screens for the first time. He later developed his famous “fire pictures” from these works. This list alone makes it clear what creative power and unwavering creative will Piene possessed in the late 1950s and how significant the year our work was created is in the context of his entire oeuvre. In 1959, the Hessenhuis in Antwerp also hosted “Vision in Motion – Motion in Vision,” the groundbreaking “ZERO” exhibition that, in retrospect, was probably the most important of all. [EH]