About
A Farm. Artwork. Archives. Activities. Associations.
Conserving the output of the two artists who shared the farm—Otto Piene and Elizabeth Goldring—since they purchased it in the 1980s. Located in Groton, Massachusetts, the farm is a site for artistic exploration, collaboration, and institutional outreach, and is dedicated to the archives of the founding artists.
The Founding Artists
Otto Piene
A founder of the influential Zero Group in the late 1950s, Otto Piene forged an artistic career marked by constant experimentation across diverse media, including kinetic light sculptures and installations, smoke and fire paintings, ceramics, and monumental inflatables that have soared in performances and events worldwide. Characterized by a combination of art and technology, as well as an interest in ritual, performance and communal experience, his work demands that viewers play an active role in the artwork. Piene was also a keen philosophical thinker, penning notable essays about art and perception.
Otto Piene (1928–2014) was born in Germany and spent the latter half of his life dividing his time between the United States and Europe, directing the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for two decades. Selected recent solo exhibitions include Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2020), Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen (2019/2020), Fitchburg Art Museum (2019), Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2015), Kunsthalle Bremen (2015), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2014), ZKM, Karlsruhe (2013) and MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2011). Selected group exhibitions include Centre Pompidou-Metz (2021), Yayoi Kusama Museum, Tokyo (2020), Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2018), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2017), Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2015), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014), Bienal de São Paulo (1985), Venice Biennale (1971, 1967), and Documenta 6, 3 and 2 (1977, 1964, 1959). He received numerous awards, including the Max Beckmann Prize, Frankfurt (2013), the UNESCO Joan Miro Medal (2003), and the Sculpture Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (1996).
Elizabeth Goldring
Elizabeth Goldring is a visually challenged artist and poet. As Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT, Goldring collaborated with MIT and Harvard engineers, scientists, physicians, designers and students to create seeing tools and visual experiences for herself and others like her with severe vision loss due to macular degeneration or other diseases of the cornea, retina and lens.
Among her publications, Goldring recently released a book of her poems and retina prints, titled, Still Blue. She is co-author of Centerbook: The Center for Advanced Visual Studies and the Evolution of Art-Science-Technology at MIT, published by SAP Press and ZKM Karlsruhe, distributed by the MIT Press, 2019.
website: elizabethgoldring.com
The Board
Elizabeth Goldring Piene, Founder, Goldring-Piene Foundation; CAVS Co-Director and Fellow (retired)
Susan Heide, Managing Director, Blackrock (retired); Estate Trustee
Edgar Quadt, collector and consultant
Seth Riskin, Founder and Manager, MIT Museum Studio; CAVS Alumnus
Lynette Roth, Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums
Andreas Schleicher-Lange, Senior Director, Sprueth Magers Gallery, Berlin
Ellen Sebring, Creative Director, MIT Visualizing Cultures; CAVS Alumna
Günter Thorn, Artist and Otto Piene’s assistant/collaborator
Gediminas Urbonas, Associate Professor, Art, Culture & Technology, MIT
Advisory Board
Andrew O’Donnell, Attorney, Mirick, O’Connell, DeMallie & Lougee
Sarah Olson, Superintendent, Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites (retired) (Elizabeth’s sister)
Jessica Spira-Goldring, Musician, Alexander Technique instructor (Elizabeth’s daughter)
Helen Weinert, Civil Engineering intern (Otto’s granddaughter)
Max Württemberger, Filmmaker (Otto’s grandson)
About the Farm
The farm is a site of expansive gardens, fields, and natural settings. Multiple permanent artworks dot the landscape. Artists interact with the various spaces and artworks to create new work, keeping the legacy of the farm alive.
