(Bad Laasphe 1928–2014 Berlin)
Luftbild IX, 2012, monogrammed, dated P12 (incised), fired gold and glaze on clay, 67.4 x 48.3 x 2.3 cm

Provenance:
The artist
Gallery Stefan Hildebrandt, St. Moritz
Private Collection, Switzerland

Edgar Quadt: I would like to begin with a quote from you in 1959:
What is a picture? A picture is a force field, an arena for the author’s
energies: melted, poured into the movement of colour, received from the fullness of the universe, channelled into the capillaries of the viewer’s open soul. Would you apply this quotation to the ceramics you have been working with since 1999?
Otto Piene: I define ceramics, unconventionally, as “heavy pictures” or clay sculptures. From this point of view, the quote also applies to ceramics.
Edgar Quadt: Does clay as a material exert a special influence?
Otto Piene: Yes, the speciality has to do with the material and surface of “clay”. The heaviness of the material is visible and impressive and less illusionistic than painted things. The materiality of clay, and the work created with it, means that I can feel it, not just see it.
Conversation between Edgar Quadt and Otto Piene, in Weibel, Peter / Beitin, Andreas / Ziegler, Philipp (ed.), Otto Piene Energiefelder, ZKM, Nuremberg, 2013