Piero Manzoni, Soncino Cremona 1933 - 1963 Milan
Introduction
Though brief, Piero Manzoni’s career stands at the forefront of the Italian postwar avant garde. Born in Soncino, Manzoni was raised in Milan and spent summer holidays in Albisola, where he first encountered the pioneering spatialist artist Lucio Fontana, who kept a studio there. In 1957, the precocious young Manzoni painted his first Achromes, the completely white canvases he draped with fabric, covered in gesso, and soaked in kaolin and then left to dry, allowing for irregular patterns of folds, wrinkles, bubbles, and drips to playfully distort the geometric form and pure colour of the composition. Manzoni exhibited these works in 1958 alongside Fontana and Enrico Baj, and began to collaborate with Enrico Castellani and Agostino Bonalumi, with whom he edited the first issue of the avant-garde journal Azimuth and founded the Azimut gallery in 1959. Manzoni’s work became increasingly conceptual, focussed on questioning the very nature of the art object. His most shocking gesture came in 1961 with his ninety cans of Merda d’artista (Artist’s Shit), which he priced by their weight in gold. Other manifestations included pneumatic sculptures filled with artist’s breath, eggs marked with the artist’s thumbprint that the public were encouraged to devour, and so-called “Living Sculptures”—human beings signed by Manzoni.
Works
News
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Press Release
Robilant+Voena's debut appearance at Fine Arts Paris October 27, 2021Pour lire ce communiqué de presse en français, veuillez cliquer ici . For the first time, R+V will be participating in Fine Arts Paris, with...Read more -
Press Release
Frieze Masters 2021: Virgin. Muse. Heroine. May 11, 2021LONDON Robilant+Voena is pleased to present an outstanding selection of female portraits from gold-grounds to Warhol for Frieze Masters 2021. Bold and heroic, proud and...Read more -
Exhibition Loan
'Achrome’ by Piero Manzoni on loan to Le Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland June 16, 2016Robilant+Voena has loaned ‘Achrome’ by Piero Manzoni to Le Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, for the exhibition ‘Achrome. Piero Manzoni, la peinture sans couleur’. 17...Read more
Press
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The Renaissance of Italian Art
Jane Morris, Art Agency, Partners
May 9, 2019 'Consagra played a key role in postwar Italian sculpture,” says Benedict Tomlinson, Director of European gallery Robilant + Voena, which... -
The Very Best of Frieze Masters
TextHarry Seymour, AnOther Magazine
October 16, 2015 As the good, the bad and the ugly of the art world descend on London for a plethora of fairs,... -
Money, Natural Beauty and Great Art Make St. Moritz Art Masters 2015 Irresistible
Hili Perlson, Artnet News
August 26, 2015 Many works on view by the likes of Lucio Fontana or Paolo Scheggi have not been shown in decades, and...