Berlin Star 2008

Otto Piene created his “Berlin Star” out of coated nylon, inflating it with air, in order to explore possibilities of immateriality in art. The artwork is light, which is a key part of its presence, an idea Piene developed through his involvement with the ZERO group, who shared an ambition to reduce art to its most elemental. Yet the star is also manifestly constructed, assembled from component parts, the form secured by air pressure. This tension, between dematerialization and concrete fabrication, gives the sculpture its energy. The material is hardly esoteric; coated nylon is a practical industrial fabric used for a wide array of functional objects. Yet inflated to such scale, and with a powerful symbolic charge, the material seems newly wondrous. Piene treats it as a means of making sculpture that levitates between the earth and sky, challenging our understanding of where the work of art begins and ends.