Otto Piene, Brussel Flower, 1977-1978, Sky Event für “Sky Dance”, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA, 1984. Foto: Elizabeth Goldring.
Otto Piene’s Sky Art Events represent a groundbreaking fusion of art, technology, and nature, where the sky becomes both canvas and collaborator. Conceived in the 1960s and evolving through the following decades, these ephemeral spectacles transformed the atmosphere itself into a site of artistic expression. Piene, a co-founder of the ZERO group, sought to liberate art from the confines of galleries and bring it into public, open-air spaces. Through inflatable sculptures, light projections, and large-scale performances, Sky Art Events invited audiences to look upward—to reflect, to dream, and to engage with art on a cosmic scale. These works not only embodied Piene’s deep fascination with light and movement, but also his belief in art’s potential to inspire collective wonder and connect people across borders.
Otto Piene’s tempera gouaches are not merely preparatory studies, but autonomous visual expansions of his Sky Events—those spectacular, ephemeral sky-based interventions through which Piene redefined the boundaries between art, nature, and technology. For many years, these works were deliberately withheld from the art market by the artist’s estate, in an effort to preserve their nuanced place within his broader oeuvre. It was only with the major Otto Piene retrospective at the Tinguely Museum in Basel last year—where his sketchbooks were brought into direct dialogue with his light and air sculptures—that the unique significance of this body of work was brought into sharper public focus. In response to growing art-historical and market interest, the estate has now begun to gradually release this pivotal group of works, thereby opening up a previously underexplored chapter of Piene’s artistic legacy.
When I see, in my thoughts, my sky sculptures of the sky events,
such as “Berlin Star,” “Brussels Flower,” “Milwaukee Anemone,“ 50
to 100 meters high, 15 meters in diameter, I also see my fire
gouaches, which approximately 20 years ago predicted and sugge-
sted those forms and spaces through painting (“Design for a Flying
Sculpture,” 1967). Boards and sheets of paper are freely written
pages of imaginary diaries which preserve what happened and
predict what is to come. Different from my stacks of black books
these are phrased freely, subjected to lively processes, and suitable
to be framed. (Otto Piene)
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Otto Pine Sky Art Event Berlin, 2014
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Otto Piene’s Olympic Rainbow, 1972, Photo Mira Cantor. -
Sky Event for “Citything Sky Ballet”, Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, April 18, 1970. Photo: Walter Seng.
