Otto Piene

This volume is a collection of artwork by the German artist Otto Piene (1928 to 2014), together with essays. It accompanies a large museum exhibition of his intermedial works and is titled Otto Piene: Paths to Paradise.

The essays offer new scholarship on how Piene developed his imaginative ways of combining art, science and nature, and on the strategies his work suggests for coping in an uncertain world. Reflecting his career on both sides of the Atlantic, the contributors are emerging and established art historians and curators from the United States and Europe.

The texts look at the life-affirming vision Piene formed after World War II. They consider the ambition of his work across several media and settings, including television, kinetic sculpture, drawing, painting and performance. These works make use of the ephemeral through atmospheric effects and shared social experience. The catalog is richly illustrated.