(Bad Laasphe 1928–2014 Berlin)
Untitled, 1964, signed, dated on the reverse Piene 64,
inscribed on the stretcher f. M. and with directional arrow,
fire gouache with pearl on canvas, 60 x 70 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private Collection, Germany

Literature:
See Annette Brunner, Otto Piene - Zero: Werke von 1957–1966,
exh. cat. Galerie Koch, Hanover 2013, p. 46 (another work with a pearl)

“For extolling brightness alone no longer seems enough to me. I approach the dark,
I pierce it with light, I make it transparent, I take its terror from it,
I turn it into a volume of power with the breath of my life like my own body,
and I take smoke so it can fly.”
Annette Brunner, Otto Piene Zero: Werke von 1957-1966,
exhibition catalogue, Galerie Koch, Hanover 2013, p. 38

Otto Piene made his first smoke pictures in 1960.
They were created by using a flame to burn the binding agents and siccatives, leaving traces of soot on the canvas. The red background of the image provides a metaphorical connection between the flame and the fire gouaches. “The smoke is deposited directly on the image. Its lack of edges represents the eternity of space, and thereby references the cosmic background to Otto Piene’s works.” (ibid., p. 40).

The metaphorical associations of the colour black that
dominates the centre of this fire gouache are connected to the soot of the flame that surrounds it, providing a link to the energy and heat of the red colour. ‘Feuergouache mit Perle’ [Fire gouache and pearl] is akin to looking into the heat of a fire, the viewer becoming lost in the blackness of the cosmos at its heart. “The pearl offers a perfect connection to the moon, with which its luminosity has long been associated. However, it is also viewed as a symbol of light in darkness, as a result of how it grows inside a closed shell.” (ibid., p. 46).

When asked whether the round shape of the isolated pearl referred to an isolated force field in the gouache, and to zero (zero is round), Otto Piene simply answered: the pearl is part of the micro-universe of the image. Otto Piene interviewed by Ole Koch

“And my pictures shall be bright, brighter than the present world [...]”
“For extolling brightness alone no longer seems enough to me. I approach the dark, I pierce it with light, I make it transparent, I take its terror from it, I turn it into a volume of power with the breath of my life like my own body, and I take smoke so it can fly.”
Otto Piene, 1963 in: exhibition catalogue Kestner
Gesellschaft, Hanover 1965, p. 118f.