Ute Meta Bauer will screen and comment on collective projects by artist Otto Piene and collaborators, including one of the first broadcasted television programs created by experimental visual artists, “Black Gate Cologne” ( 1968). Piene produced “Black Gate Cologne” along with intermedia artist and filmmaker Aldo Tambellini.

Friday: 7 p.m. – Ute Meta Bauer
Saturday: 12 p.m. – Ute Meta Bauer and Otto Piene

Ute Meta Bauer is an associate professor and the founding director of the recently established program in a rt, culture, and technology at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, where she served as director of the MIT visual arts program from 2005- 09. From 1996- 2006, she held an appointment at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna as a professor of theory and practice of contemporary a rt. Educated as an artist for more than two decades Bauer has worked as a curator of exhibitions and presentations on contemporary art, film, video, and sound, with a focus on transdisciplinary formats. She was a c o-curator of Documenta11 (2001- 02) in the team of Okwui Enwezor, has been the artistic director of the 3rd Berlin Biennial (2004) and in 2005 curated the Mobile_Transborder Archive for InSite05, Tijuana /San Diego . Bauer has been the founding director of the Office For Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and was the editor of numerous publications in the field of contemporary art, including: What’s left…What remains? SITAC VI (Mexico City 2009), Education, Information, Entertainment. New Approaches in Higher Artistic Education (Vienna, 2001) META 1-4 (Stuttgart, 1992-94), case (Barcelona, 2001; Porto, 2002), and Verksted # 1-6 (Oslo, 2003- 06). Bauer is an advisor for a number of cultural institutions such as the MIT List Visual Arts Center, is a member of the administrative board of nbk - Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Germany and serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Germany and LABoral Center for the Arts and Industrial Creation in Gijon, Spain. Her guilty pleasure is the collaboration with apparatjik, a collective project she joins as artistic director on special occasions.

Otto Piene was born in Laasphe, Westphalia (Germany) in 1928, and lives and works in Düsseldorf, Boston, and Groton, Massachusetts. Between 1949 and 1953 he studied painting and art education at the Academy of Art in Munich and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He also earned a four-year degree in philosophy from the University of Cologne. To make a living Piene became a lecturer at the Fashion Institute in Düsseldorf. He had his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf in 1959 and his work has been shown internationally since then. Together with Heinz Mack, Piene founded the group 'ZERO' in 1957 with Günther Uecker joining the group some time later. The three artists published the art journal 'ZERO' and organized numerous ZERO-exhibitions between 1961 and 1966 including 'ZERO Lichtraum', a joint work of the three artists, at documenta III in 1964, the same year he became a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1968 to 1971, he was the first Fellow of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), founded by Hungarian artist Gyorgy Kepes. In 1972, Piene became a Professor of Environmental Art at MIT, and in 1974 he succeeded Kepes as director of the CAVS, in which position he served until 1994.

The Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund arranged the artist's first retrospective exhibition in 1967 and he was invited to present his work once again at the documenta in Kassel. In addition Piene arranged the German pavilion for the 1967 and 1971 Venice Biennales and for the closing of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Piene created the sky work “Olympic Rainbow.” In 1968, along with Aldo Tambellini, he produced “Black Gate Cologne”, which is cited as one of the first broadcasted television programs produced by experimental visual artists. 1985 he exhibited at the São Paulo Biennial and he is invited to show his work all over the globe until today.

Propositions is a public forum that explores ideas in development. Inspired by the scientific method of hypothesis, research, and synthesis, each two-day seminar explores a topic of current investigation in an invited speaker’s own artistic or intellectual practice. Over the course of a seminar session, these developing ideas are presented to the public, responded to, “researched,” and discussed to propel the ideas forward in unique ways.

One Friday evening per month, an invited artist or cultural thinker will present on an idea in process—the hypothesis—as the seminar topic. This initial presentation introduces the seminar leader’s current thinking on a concept or idea as well as unresolved questions that remain. The next day, starting at noon, an “expert” lecture, screening, performance, or activity presents new perspectives or specific knowledge, followed by a lunch break. In an afternoon discussion, hypothesis, research, and public dialogue converge in an informal working session in the fifth-floor Museum as Hub space at the New Museum.

Propositions is part of the Museum as Hub initiative, a laboratory for art and ideas realized through a partnership of five international arts organizations that includes Insa Art Space, Seoul; the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cairo; and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. The initiative seeks to support art activities and experimentation; explore artistic, curatorial, and institutional practice; and serve as an important resource for the public to learn about contemporary art from around the world.