1. The Italian Vanguard in
the 1960s
Art 109A: Art since 1945
Westchester Community College
Fall 2012
Dr. Melissa Hall

2. Lucio Fontana
One of the leading artists in
postwar Italy was the Argentine-
born Lucio Fontana
He founded a movement called
Spazialismo, or Spatialism, and
elaborated his theories in five
manifestos published from 1947 to
1952
Lucio Fontana in his studio
Image source: Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles

3. Lucio Fontana
His breakthrough came when he
began making “pictures” by
impregnating the canvas with
pigment, and then slashing them to
create real – rather than illusory –
spatial effects

4. “Piercing, slashing and assaulting the
surface of his works, he challenged the
traditional easel painting, forcing the viewer
to contend with the work of art as an object
in real space rather than a representation of
illusionistic space.”
Milwauke Art Museum
Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept: Expectations, 1963
Hirshorn

5. Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept: Expectations, 1962
Hirshorn

6. Piero Manzoni
Italian artist based in Milan
Influenced by Lucio Fontana and
Yves Klein
Piero Manzoni
Image source: http://www.villagevoice.com/photoGallery/index/864191/0

7. Piero Manzoni
He began creating a series of
“Achromes” (a variant on the
monochrome) in 1957
Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1958

8. Piero Manzoni
The achromes were made of
canvas impregnated with white
gesso or kaolin
The canvas was wrinkled or
creased to call attention to the
physical properties of the material
Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1960
Museum of Modern Art

9. Piero Manzoni
The achromes were meant to be
experienced as physical objects,
rather than “windows” or
“doorways” to another space
“Abstraction and references must
be totally avoided. In our freedom
of invention we must succeed in
constructing a world that can be
measured only in its own terms.
We absolutely cannot consider the
picture as a space onto which to
project our mental scenography. It
is the area of freedom in which we
search for the discovery of our
first images.”
Piero Manzoni, 1957
http://collections.walkerart.org/item/object/8701
Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1962
Museum of Modern Art

10. Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1962, 15 3/8 x 15 3/8 inches, Kaolin & bread rolls

11. Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1961-62, 24 3/16 x 18 1/8 inches, artificial fiber

12. Piero Manzoni
Manzoni’s next series moved in a
more conceptual direction
Piero Manzoni, with one of
his line works

13. Piero Manzoni
The line drawings were made on
rolls of paper of various length and
sealed in cardboard cylinders
Piero Manzoni, Line (fragment), 1959

14. Piero Manzoni, Line 18.82m,
September 1959
Tate Gallery

15. Piero Manzoni
The artist envisioned a global
project of placing massively long
line drawings in cities throughout
the world
Piero Manzoni, Line 7,200 m., 4 July 1960 Piero Manzoni, working on Line 7,200 m. at a newspaper
Herning, Denmark mill

16. Piero Manzoni
He then came up with the idea of
the line of infinite length -- a solid
container that invites the viewer to
imagine the line as “a metaphysical
speculation”
Piero Manzoni, Line of Infinite Length, 1960

17. Piero Manzoni
“Line 1000 Meters Long is more
conceptual than visual. Indeed the
line that is its heart eludes the eye, for
these canister works are usually
shown closed. Art that is invisible
raises the act of thinking above the
act of seeing, as Manzoni also did
when, for example, he signed eggs
with his thumbprint and asked a
show’s visitors to eat them. A line in a
can is itself a conceptual conundrum.
Playful but acute, Line 1000 Meters
Long invites us to question our
expectations of the artwork, and our
responses to it.”
Museum of Modern Art
Piero Manzoni, Line 1000 Meters Long, 1961. Museum of
Modern Art

18. Piero Manzoni
On July 21, 1960, Manzoni staged
a kind of Happening called
Consumption of dynamic art by the
art-devouring public
Piero Manzoni, Consumption of dynamic art by the art-devouring public , July 21,
1960
Pieromanzoni.org

19. Piero Manzoni
The artist placed his thumbprints on
eggs and fed them to the public
“The "art devouring" project discloses
a new trend in art, shifting her role
from production to consumption. The
spectator is involved in the artistic
activity and turned himself into a work
of art. "It is not our business to
educate; nor is it our business to pass
a message".
http://www.pieromanzoni.org/EN/works.htm
Piero Manzoni, Consumption of dynamic art by the art-devouring public , July 21,
1960
Pieromanzoni.org

20. Living Sculptures
The Living Sculpture series was
inspired by Yves Klein’s Living
Brush performances
Piero Manzoni, Living Sculptures, 1961

21. Living Sculptures
The artist signed actual people,
transforming them into art
Piero Manzoni, Living Sculptures, 1961

22. Living Sculptures
He then issued a certificate of
authenticity
“A yellow stamp limited the artistic status to a body
part, while a green one meant that the individual
signed was a work of art under certain
circumstances (i.e. only while sleeping or running).
Finally a purple stamp stuck on the receipt of
authenticity meant that the service was paid for”
http://www.pieromanzoni.org/EN/works_shit.htm#scultureviventi
Piero Manzoni, Living Sculptures, 1961

23. Piero Manzoni
In the Magic Base series, the artist
created pedestals for people to
stand on to become works of art
Piero Manzoni standing on Magic Base
No. 2, 1961

24. Piero Manzoni
Socle du Monde turned the world
itself into a work of art
Piero Manzoni Socle de Monde, 1962

25. Piero Manzoni
Anything touched by the artist could
become a work of art
Piero Manzoni Thumbprint, 1960
Museum of Modern Art

26. Piero Manzoni
In this work the artist filled a balloon
with his breath
Piero Manzoni Artist’s Breath, 1960
Tate Gallery

27. Piero Manzoni
The work is now in the Tate Gallery
Piero Manzoni Artist’s Breath, 1960
Tate Gallery

28. Piero Manzoni
Manzoni’s most radical work was
his Merda d’artista
Piero Manzoni with Merda d’artista

29. Piero Manzoni
In this work, the artist filled 90 tin
cans with his own excrement
He priced them according to their
weight in gold
Piero Manzoni, Merda d’Artista, 1961
Museum of Modern Art

30. Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917
Piero Manzoni, Merda d’Artista, 1961
Museum of Modern Art

31. Piero Manzoni
“Manzoni’s critical and metaphorical
reification of the artist’s body, its
processes and products, pointed the
way towards an understanding of the
persona of the artist and the product of
the artist’s body as a consumable
object. The Merda d’artista, the artist’s
shit, dried naturally and canned ‘with
no added preservatives’, was the
perfect metaphor for the bodied and
disembodied nature of artistic labour:
the work of art as fully incorporated
raw material, and its violent expulsion
as commodity. Manzoni understood the
creative act as part of the cycle of
consumption: as a constant
reprocessing, packaging, marketing,
consuming, reprocessing, packaging,
ad infinitum.”
Tate Gallery
Piero Manzoni, Merda d’Artista, 1961
Museum of Modern Art