Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie and Deutsche Bank KunstHalle honor ZERO artist Otto Piene (1928-2014) with the large scale joint exhibition “Otto Piene. More Sky”. As part of the exhibition, a spectacular sky art event will take place outside the Neue Nationalgalerie on July 19, 2014.
At Neue Nationalgalerie, the slide installation The Proliferation of the Sun will be presented each evening from 10 pm to 3 am. Originally conceived for a small off space in New York in 1967 and performed that same year in Nuremberg, Cologne, and Dortmund, colorfully shimmering shapes on over 1000 hand-painted glass slides are projected into the open exhibition space, resulting in what Piene calls a “poetic journey through space.” The reconstruction of this spectral color experience will develop a special evocative power in the upper hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie, confronting the architecture of the Mies van der Rohe building — which will close for renovations at the end of 2014 — with Piene’s idealism and utopian visions.
The exhibition at Deutsche Bank KunstHalle will explore the enormous breath and experimental attitude of Otto Piene’s early work. Early stencil paintings, light prints and light sculptures, impressive smoke drawings and fire paintings — some from the Deutsche Bank’s own collection — will show the artist’s experimental approach with the elements air, fire, and light, and the liberation of the arts that he engaged in. The exhibition will close with a large light space designed for the exhibition.