Ante Glibota's hommage to Otto Piene and his HÉLIOGABALUS Berlin 18th April – 30th June 2018

THE NIGHTS OF HELIOGABALUS
Homage to Otto Piene on what would have been his 90th birthday (1928–2014)
Poems by Fernando Arrabal, text by Ante Glibota, lithographs by Otto Piene, and sculptures by Andreas Blank and Stefan Rinck
Otto Piene created “Die Nae^chte des Heliogabalus” to accompany the surreal poems written specifically for Piene by the Spanish-French poet Fernando Arrabal, Paris, co-founder of the Theatre of the Absurd. This piece of work was to be Piene’s last. It consists of 11 lithographs, and they will be exhibited for the first time on what would have been his 90th birthday.
This artistic dialogue between the visual arts and poetry was conceived by Ante Glibota. Ante Glibota, a close friend of Otto Piene, will attend the opening, give an introduction, and share his memories of how these pieces were created in the lithography studio in Paris.
Schlachthaus.fresh&fine art will open its new exhibition space at Budapester StrassYe 10 in Berlin Charlottenburg with the “Naechte des Heliogabalus”.
It is both a pleasure and an honour for the curators, Constanze Kleiner and Stephan von Wiese, to be able to exhibit the creations of these two great artists “Fernando Arrabal and Otto Piene” in their debate with Heliogabalus, the anarchist Roman emperor of antiquity, and to place this particular work alongside new works by the sculptors Andreas Blank and Stefan Rinck.
Otto Piene is a master of light who inscribed his paintings on the sky. As a virtuoso of subtle, absurdist humour, with all his visionary ideas and utopian paintings, he is a cheerful creator of hope – and he is here again in Berlin, right in our midst, on his birthday!
Otto Piene concluded his artistic work with a brilliant collaboration in June 2014. Shortly before his death, the painter and creator of light and sky art was inspired by poems written for him by the French-Spanish poet Fernando Arrabal. The apex of his life’s work was a final, new and surprising masterpiece – a new beginning!
Schlachthaus.fresh&fine art would like to celebrate this!
On 9 May at 7.30pm the artist’s widow, Elizabeth Goldring Piene, will read from her poetry, and on 1 June, also at 7.30pm, we will be in conversation with the sculptor Guenter Thorn, Piene’s colleague for many years.
“Of course I dream of a better world –
Am I supposed to dream of a worse one?”
Otto Piene