9 it down to its elements, and then took these newly gained elements and created aesthetic forms of expression with it, his works: his art! this way of thinking has held sway in western art for more than a hundred years, and is still very re- levant today. recounting the entire journey would go beyond the scope here. but what can be said is that quite a few artists from western europe, and later on also from north america, started to under- stand their art at the beginning of the 20th century in the same way as composers understand their music. from then onwards, they wanted to show nothing other than the creation and make it pre- sent and real. just like a sound in music, a colored surface should only be what it currently is: a tone, a color tone – or more accurately, a colored plane! this represented another fundamental change in the western conception of art. first, through rea- lism, naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, cu- bism, futurism, and especially in germany, expres- sionism, that what was portrayed became, step by step, detached from the portrayal, that what is represented from the representation - the portray- ed from the image, as it were. and then the image itself, as a factual object, is radically stripped of any need for representation. paintings and sculptures were stripped of their model-image-meaning, they weren’t for telling a story or conveying a message anymore; they no longer needed to make a state- ment about something. it was what theo van doesburg formulated as fol- lows in 1930 in his so-called manifesto of the con- crete art: “the composition should, just like the elements that determine it, be simple and visually controllable. (...) the technique must be mechanical, that is, exact, anti-impressionist. (…) we want absolute clarity.” 2 inevitably, this thesis brings us to the center point of our discussion about otto piene’s work. one arrives at the need to outline the historical plat- form on which modernity has spread in the arts, on which modern art found its stage. when following theo van doesburg (actually christian emil marie küpper, who also published under the pseudonym i.k. bonset), the dutch artist - painter and theorist - who was born in 1883 in utrecht and died in 1931 in davos, and the co-signatories of the grundla- gen der konkreten kunst, the artists carlsund, héli- on, tutundjian and wantz, one arrives at concrete art, or the art movement that formulated in 1930 in the journal ac, that a work “should only be built with purely plastic elements, i.e. with surfaces and colors. a sculptural element only represents itself; consequently, the sculpture only means itself.”3 a work that has fire and its active forms, light and heat, as its subject, should therefore not merely show the “impressionistic” workings of light and heat on objects in our world anymore, but “must” bring out the workings, the effects, the consequen- ces of fire itself. because: “... nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a color, a surface.” 4 this implies for otto piene’s art: “... there is nothing more concrete and real than light and air and fire and earth - and in their re- spective deconstructed states, their manifesta- tions, in their phenomenality itself!” 5 it was this basic, almost deconstructed way of thin- king on which otto piene built his art. he turned his back on “impressionistic” intentions, on those who “only” depict the indirect effects of light and heat in our world. accordingly, he always sought the most direct, close proximity to the elements of fire and light and air - and later also earth - and created ima- ges, art works and aesthetic expressions in the same way the element fire turns into light and heat. in this way, otto piene the artist can be understood firstly as a re-founder, by him releasing and even decons- tructing the foundations of art, indeed of existence, and as a creator and catalyst, by using “his” elements to catalyze new forms and new phenomena! already more than 10 years before the publication of the manifest der konkreten kunst did van does- burg arrive at the concept of aesthetic expression. and, having co-founded the magazine de stijl in 1917, he started in 1919 to formulate his grund- begriffe der neuen gestaltenden kunst (basic con- cepts of the new formative art) published in 1924 as part of the bauhaus book series. in this work, he distinguishes between the theme of the “poor beggar” and the theme of “poverty”. accordingly, the art of pure forms eliminates the need for an artist to use an allegory when he wants to portray a figurative abstraction, in other words something that cannot be grasped or understood materially. for justice, for example, an artist no lon- ger needs to seek the allegory of justice; instead, his challenge is to find an aesthetic expression of justice. and to express poverty, we do not neces- sarily need to portray a poor beggar; we need to formulate an aesthetic expression of poverty. consequently, to give the light, the heat or the fire a face, it is no longer opportune to give it an impres- sionistic representation. it is now the highest artistic challenge to create a work, an aesthetic form of ex- pression, that brings out the effects of light or heat and fire in such a way that light and fire become, for example by their effect,aesthetical,perceptible - and with fire and light becoming the central message for observation. compressed in this way, we can attempt to put the legacy of otto piene into words. otto piene’s late “ceramics” are such legacies. they combine the elements of fire and earth. because his traditional primary element, fire, no longer oc- curs in them “merely” as an indirect,forming ele- ment, but also as a direct existential one. from this perspective, otto piene reached an evi- dent conclusion towards the end of his working life. 2) theo van doesburg, g.o. carlsund, jean helion, leon tutundjian, marcel wantz: manifest der konkreten kunst; in: làrt concrete, 1930. 3) ibid. 4) ibid. 5) conclusion of manifest der konkreten kunst.