Otto Piene (1928-2014)

This glowing, golden work by Otto Piene is an early, resplendent example of the ZERO founder’s Rasterbild paintings. Stretching to almost one metre in length, an opulent void of gilded colour is punctuated by a horizontal mesh of characterful corrugations. Reminiscent of Lucio Fontana’s spatialist concepts, the rhythmical, rippling pattern of disturbance creates a fascinating interplay of light and shadow, positive and negative space, two- and three-dimensionality. Manifested by applying thick coats of paint over a stencilled screen, Piene allows external forces – beyond the control of the artist’s hand – to intercede. With this intervention, Piene creates a current ‘between the work and the spectator and fill[s] the space between them. This space cannot be quantified because the spatial properties of the work are irrational - the work “as space” is irrational’ (O. Piene, 'Paths to Paradise', in O. Piene, H. Mack, Zero, Cambridge 1973, p. 46).