| Materials |
balls of cotton wool |
| Height: | cm. 20.00 |
| Width: | cm. 25.00 |
10.05.07 | 24.09.07
Piero Manzoni
Achrome
1961 - 1962
Courtesy :
Claude Berri collection, Paris
From 1960 Manzoni began an intense period of experimentation with materials, both natural and artificial, such as phosphorescent pigments, cobalt chloride, polystyrene, felt, fiberglass, cotton wool, rabbit skins and straw. At the same time he completely zeroed the process of transforming the materials, by identifying them with a powerful creative potential and image. Rather as Marcel Duchamp had done, by extracting aesthetic entities from the objet trouvé or John Cage in recognizing the music value of every sound derived from real life, including silence. In these experiments he even went so far as to give a truth value of their own to his three-dimensional Achromes, which in some cases suggest a certain analogy with the sculptures of Günther Uecker. However Manzoni differs from Uecker by his absolute refusal to charge the work with symbolic values. This incursion into the third dimension led to an exploration of the space/surface relationship which Manzoni shared not only with Enrico Castellani and Agostino Bonalumi, but also with Rome-based artists such as Francesco Lo Savio, who was working in the same years on the relationship between space, light and surface, and Giuseppe Uncini with his architecture-pictures made of reinforced concrete. Despite this, the Achromes substantially remained faithful to their original relationship with the wall, representing over the years an in-depth reflection on the idea of “the picture”, reality and the expressive possibilities of painting, as confirmed by Manzoni’s retention of the mat and frame.
Manzoni was born in Soncino, in the province of Cremona, on July 13th 1933, of counts Meroni Manzoni di Chiosca and Poggiolo. He studied in Milan at the Leone XIII classical ...
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![Piero Manzoni, Senza titolo [Untitled]](http://mm.fondazionedonnaregina.it/foto/box_80/opera172_museo_madre.jpg)




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