Aerial view 4, 2012

Wall object as grid work with platinum overlay, glaze on clay

Dimensions: 48 x 68 cm

Light was of paramount importance in Otto Piene's work, and his raster paintings are the results of precisely this preoccupation: "In the aftermath of impressions (the blank sea backlit) and disturbed by contemporary art's strange tendency towards opaque darkness, I began in 1957 to paint pictures that were intended to reflect light in as perfect a purity as possible," Piene is quoted as saying in a catalogue on the occasion of an exhibition in 1965 at the Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover.

Otto Piene was born in Laasphe in Westphalia in 1928, studied art and philosophy in Munich and Düsseldorf and was a co-founder of the international ZERO movement. "I must confess that I was always happiest in my work when it took a surprising turn," Otto Piene once said. This experimental attitude is also evident in his light-kinetic works.