Together with Heinz Mack, Otto Piene founded the artists' group ZERO in 1957, which saw itself as a counter-movement to the Informel and therefore gestural art that was predominant at the time. In this way, Piene's work can also be understood as a rejection of expressionism and subjectivity in favor of an enthusiasm for the renewal of art through new materials. "ZERO is an incommensurable zone where the old state merges into the new."
With his abstract aesthetic and unorthodox mode of production, Piene's work demonstrates a decisive shift in the way canvas is treated and is pushed to its material limits beyond the application of paint.
In a consistent exploration of the themes of light, movement, and space, Piene created light ballets beginning in 1959 with reference to elemental natural energies, using smoke and fire in particular in his works.
The element of fire thus plays a central role in Otto Piene's artistic development and determines the appearance of his works to a great extent. Through a wide variety of manipulations, the artist stages a new vocabulary for his art. The creative process is decisively determined by the arbitrariness of the element fire.
