Piero Manzoni
Encyclopedia
Piero Manzoni was an Italian
artist best known for his ironic conceptual art
. Influenced by the work of Yves Klein
, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced, the work of a generation of younger Italian artists brought together by the critic Germano Celant
in the first Arte Povera
exhibition held in Genoa
, 1967 . Manzoni is most famous for a series of artworks that call into question the nature of the art object, directly prefiguring Conceptual Art
. His work eschews normal artist's materials, instead using everything from rabbit fur
to human excrement
in order to "tap mythological sources and to realize authentic and universal values" .
His work is widely seen as a critique of the mass production and consumerism that was changing Italian society (the 'Economic Miracle') after World War II
.
, province of Cremona
. His full name was Count Meroni Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo.
Self taught as an artist, Manzoni first exhibited at the Castello Sforzesco, Soncino, August 1956, aged 23. His early work was broadly gestural, and showed the influence of milanese proponents of Nuclear Art, such as Enrico Baj
.
exhibition 'Epoca Blu' at the Galleria Apollinaire, January 1957. This exhibition consisted of 11 identical blue monochromes. By the end of the year he had ceased producing work influenced by the prevailing trends in Art Informel, to works that responded directly to Klein's monochromes. Called Achromes, they invariably looked white but were actually colourless. In these paintings Manzoni experimented with various pigments and materials. Initially favouring canvases coated in gesso
(1957–1958), he also worked with kaolin, another form of white clay often used in the production of porcelain
. The kaolin works are generally made from clay covered canvases folded horizontally, or sometimes cut-out squares of canvas coated in the clay and adhered onto the canvas. As well as Yves Klein, these works showed the influence of Fontana
and Burri
and the American artist Robert Rauschenberg
, who had painted neutral white canvases in 1951. Later he would create Achromes from white cotton
wool, fiberglass
, rabbit
skin and bread rolls. He also experimented with phosphorescent
paint and cobalt chloride so that the colours would change over time.
s. The first, 12 Linee
(12 Lines) took place in December 1959, quickly followed by Corpi d'Aria
(Bodies of Air) in May 1960. This was an edition of 45 balloons on tripods that could be blown up by the buyer, or the artist himself, depending on the price paid. In July 1960 he exhibited Consumption of Art by the Art-Devouring Public, in which he hard-boiled eggs, printed his thumprint onto them, and then handed them out to the audience to eat. This was the last exhibition by Manzoni at Azimuth, after which the gallery was forced to close when the lease ran out.
.
(Merda d'Artista). Each 30-gram can was priced by weight based on the current value of gold (around $1.12 a gram in 1960). The contents of the cans remain a much-disputed enigma, since opening them would destroy the value of the artwork. Various theories about the contents have been proposed, including speculation that it is plaster. In the following years, the cans have spread to various art collections all over the world and netted large prices, far outstripping inflation. The most recent can to be auctioned, #19, sold on 26 February 2007 in the USA for $80,000.. It was described as:
Other works from this period include limited edition thumbprints, and the Declarations of Authenticity, 1961-61, a printed multiple that could be bought, proving the owner's status as either part or whole work of art, depending on the price paid. He also designated a number of people, including Umberto Eco
, as authentic works of art gratis
.
Various other experimental pieces included trying to create a mechanical animal as a moving sculpture and using solar energy as a power source. In 1960 he created a sphere that was held aloft on a jet of air.
Piero Manzoni died of myocardial infarction
in his studio in Milan in 1963.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
artist best known for his ironic conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
. Influenced by the work of Yves Klein
Yves Klein
Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced, the work of a generation of younger Italian artists brought together by the critic Germano Celant
Germano Celant
Germano Celant is an Italian art historian, critic and curator, mostly renewed for being one of the founding members of the "Arte Povera" movement in 1967....
in the first Arte Povera
Arte Povera
Arte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether...
exhibition held in Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, 1967 . Manzoni is most famous for a series of artworks that call into question the nature of the art object, directly prefiguring Conceptual Art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
. His work eschews normal artist's materials, instead using everything from rabbit fur
Rabbit hair
Rabbit hair is the fur of the common rabbit. It is most commonly used in the making of fur hats and coats, and is considered quite valuable....
to human excrement
Human feces
Human feces , also known as a stool, is the waste product of the human digestive system including bacteria. It varies significantly in appearance, according to the state of the digestive system, diet and general health....
in order to "tap mythological sources and to realize authentic and universal values" .
His work is widely seen as a critique of the mass production and consumerism that was changing Italian society (the 'Economic Miracle') after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Biography
Manzoni was born in SoncinoSoncino, Italy
Soncino is a comune in the Province of Cremona in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 60 km east of Milan and about 30 km northwest of Cremona...
, province of Cremona
Province of Cremona
The Province of Cremona is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Cremona.The province has an area of 1,771 km² and in 2008 census, had a population of 358,628. There are 115 comuni...
. His full name was Count Meroni Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo.
Self taught as an artist, Manzoni first exhibited at the Castello Sforzesco, Soncino, August 1956, aged 23. His early work was broadly gestural, and showed the influence of milanese proponents of Nuclear Art, such as Enrico Baj
Enrico Baj
Enrico Baj was an Italian artist and writer on art. Many of his works show an obsession with nuclear war. He created prints, sculptures but especially collage. He was close to the surrealist and dada movements, and was later associatied with CoBrA. As an author he has been described as a leading...
.
Achromes
His work changed irrevocably after visiting Yves Klein'sYves Klein
Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
exhibition 'Epoca Blu' at the Galleria Apollinaire, January 1957. This exhibition consisted of 11 identical blue monochromes. By the end of the year he had ceased producing work influenced by the prevailing trends in Art Informel, to works that responded directly to Klein's monochromes. Called Achromes, they invariably looked white but were actually colourless. In these paintings Manzoni experimented with various pigments and materials. Initially favouring canvases coated in gesso
Gesso
Gesso is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these...
(1957–1958), he also worked with kaolin, another form of white clay often used in the production of porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
. The kaolin works are generally made from clay covered canvases folded horizontally, or sometimes cut-out squares of canvas coated in the clay and adhered onto the canvas. As well as Yves Klein, these works showed the influence of Fontana
Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana was an Italian painter, sculptor and theorist of Argentine birth. He was mostly known as the founder of Spatialism and his ties to Arte Povera.-Early life:...
and Burri
Alberto Burri
Alberto Burri , was an Italian abstract painter and sculptor. Città di Castello has memorialized him with a large permanent museum of his works....
and the American artist Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, who had painted neutral white canvases in 1951. Later he would create Achromes from white cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
wool, fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
, rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
skin and bread rolls. He also experimented with phosphorescent
Phosphorescence
Phosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs. The slower time scales of the re-emission are associated with "forbidden" energy state transitions in quantum...
paint and cobalt chloride so that the colours would change over time.
Gallery Azimuth
He founded the Gallery Azimuth, Milan, in 1959 with the artist Enrico Castellani, and proceeded to put on a series of revolutionary exhibitions of multipleMultiple
The word multiple can refer to:*Multiple , multiples of numbers*List of multiple discoveries, instances of scientists, working independently of each other, reaching similar findings...
s. The first, 12 Linee
Linee
"Linee" is an artist's book by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni, created in 1959. Each work consists of a cardboard tube, a scroll of paper with a black line drawn down it, and a simple printed and autographed label. This label contains a brief description of the work, the work’s length, the...
(12 Lines) took place in December 1959, quickly followed by Corpi d'Aria
Corpo d'aria
"Corpo d'aria" is an artist’s multiple by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. Manufactured between October 1959 and March 1960, the pieces comprise of a box, a tripod base, deflated balloon and a mouthpiece. 45 copies were made and sold at 30,000 lire each...
(Bodies of Air) in May 1960. This was an edition of 45 balloons on tripods that could be blown up by the buyer, or the artist himself, depending on the price paid. In July 1960 he exhibited Consumption of Art by the Art-Devouring Public, in which he hard-boiled eggs, printed his thumprint onto them, and then handed them out to the audience to eat. This was the last exhibition by Manzoni at Azimuth, after which the gallery was forced to close when the lease ran out.
Artist's Breath
Contemporaneously with the Bodies of Air, Manzoni produced the Artist's Breaths (Fiato d'Artista), a series of red, white or blue balloons, inflated and attached to a wooden base inscribed "Piero Manzoni- Artist's Breath". The works continued Manzoni's obsession with the limits of physicality, whilst parodying the Art World's obsession with permanence, and also provided a poignant Memento MoriMemento mori
Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die". It names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality...
.
Artist's Shit
In May 1961 Manzoni created 90 small cans, sealed with the text Artist's ShitArtist's shit
Artist's Shit is a 1961 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, each 30 grams and measuring 4.8x6.5cm, with a label in Italian, English, French, and German stating: Artist's Shit...
(Merda d'Artista). Each 30-gram can was priced by weight based on the current value of gold (around $1.12 a gram in 1960). The contents of the cans remain a much-disputed enigma, since opening them would destroy the value of the artwork. Various theories about the contents have been proposed, including speculation that it is plaster. In the following years, the cans have spread to various art collections all over the world and netted large prices, far outstripping inflation. The most recent can to be auctioned, #19, sold on 26 February 2007 in the USA for $80,000.. It was described as:
Other works from this period include limited edition thumbprints, and the Declarations of Authenticity, 1961-61, a printed multiple that could be bought, proving the owner's status as either part or whole work of art, depending on the price paid. He also designated a number of people, including Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
, as authentic works of art gratis
Gratis
Gratis is the process of providing goods or services without compensation. It is often referred to in English as "free of charge" or "complimentary"...
.
Various other experimental pieces included trying to create a mechanical animal as a moving sculpture and using solar energy as a power source. In 1960 he created a sphere that was held aloft on a jet of air.
Piero Manzoni died of myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in his studio in Milan in 1963.
Other works
- Magic Bases (Magisk Sockkel, 1961), a series of wooden plinths that could be stood on to acquire status of 'Living Sculpture'.
- Lines of Exceptional LengthLinee"Linee" is an artist's book by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni, created in 1959. Each work consists of a cardboard tube, a scroll of paper with a black line drawn down it, and a simple printed and autographed label. This label contains a brief description of the work, the work’s length, the...
(1960–61). Lines drawn on paper, the longest of which was 7.2 km, intended to be left in every major city in the world, which would equal the length of the equator when joined.
- Base of the World (Socle du Monde, 1961). A large metal plinth, inscribed 'The Base Of The World, Homage To Galileo' placed upside down in a field in Herning, Denmark. It announces that the whole world is a work of art, rendering the artist obsolete.
- Piero Manzoni; The Life And Works (1963), published posthumously by Jes Petersen. An artist's book consisting of 100 sheets of transparent plastic bound to a white metal sheet. The only text is the title page. The rest of the book is totally blank.
See also
- Conceptual ArtConceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
- LineeLinee"Linee" is an artist's book by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni, created in 1959. Each work consists of a cardboard tube, a scroll of paper with a black line drawn down it, and a simple printed and autographed label. This label contains a brief description of the work, the work’s length, the...
- Artist's ShitArtist's shitArtist's Shit is a 1961 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, each 30 grams and measuring 4.8x6.5cm, with a label in Italian, English, French, and German stating: Artist's Shit...
- Corpo d'ariaCorpo d'aria"Corpo d'aria" is an artist’s multiple by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. Manufactured between October 1959 and March 1960, the pieces comprise of a box, a tripod base, deflated balloon and a mouthpiece. 45 copies were made and sold at 30,000 lire each...
- Arte PoveraArte PoveraArte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether...