Otto Piene

(1928-2014)

Weißer Lichtgeist
1966/2012

Footnotes

Provenance
Gift from the artist to the present owner

Exhibited
Venice, Palazzo Bembo, The Encyclopedic Palace. 55th International Art Exhibition: La Biennale di Venezia, 2013
Friedrichshafen, Zeppelin Museum, ZERO Zwischen Himmel und Erde, 2014, p. 22f, p. 100, illustrated in colour
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ZERO Countdown to Tomorrow 1950 - 60s, 2014-2015, p. 200, illustrated in colour
Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, ZERO Die internationale Kunstbewegung der 50er und 60er Jahre, 2015, p. 529, illustrated in colour
Istanbul, Sabanci University Sakip Sabanci Museum, ZERO Countdown to the future, 2015–2016, p. 145, illustrated in colour
Hanover, Stiftung Ahlers Pro Arte, ZERO, Nouveau Réalisme and questioning the reality, 2016, p. 43, illustrated in colour



Abandoning conventional methods of creation, Otto Piene developed new spatial possibilities through the medium of light. He regarded light and colour as a unity. He believed that light was the primary condition for all visibility, and that colour derives its quality from its allotment of light thereby creating richness, eloquence, sensuality and beauty. Weisser Lichtgeist, conceived in 1966 and executed in 2012 is one of a six-piece series of handblown unique works.

Otto Piene designed the Weisser Lichtgeist in 1961 and a series of these light sculptures were handcrafted in 1966 in Leerdam. The glass sculptures consisted of multiple parts, each individually handblown, and executed in opal white. In 1966, the sculptures were exhibited in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Following this exhibition, the sculptures individually travelled all over the world, getting destroyed one by one over time, until finally, there was only one left in the Museum Ostwall in Germany, where around 2010 a museum visitor stumbled over and broke the last specimen. At Otto Piene's request and under his supervision, the master glassblowers Royal Leerdam Crystal, were asked to re- blow the six light sculptures and the present work is one of them.

In his series of Weisser Lichtgeist, Piene focuses on light being the centre of attention. The opaque glass shape consists of four individual, overlaid glass bodies which swell and decrease towards the top. Its cylinder base contains a bulb that emits light impulses into the glass sculpture at intervals. The timing of these intervals was predefined by Piene causing the individual glass bodies to radiate different shades of white. The sculpture almost develops a life of its own; perhaps that of spirituality, alluding to the significance of its title.

This present work has been included in some of the most important ZERO exhibitions around the world, notably at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in the 2014-2015 exhibition ZERO Countdown to Tomorrow 1950 - 60s. This was the first major survey of ZERO art by a major museum in America. This exhibition charted the development of some 40 artists across Europe, Japan, North and South America, and sought to identify the significance of the movement and its immeasurable impact upon the development of visual culture. Otto Piene also showed this work in The Encyclopedic Palace (Il Palazzo Enciclopedico) exhibition at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.

Today, Otto Piene's work can be found in numerous museum collections around the world, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. His groundbreaking light sculptures took him just a little closer to his dream of a world in which freedom allows 'us to conquer the sky, float through space, live the grand game of light and space without being chased by fear and mistrust" (the artist in: Otto Piene and Heinz Mack Eds., ZERO 3, Düsseldorf 1961, n.p.).