Protagonist of the history of contemporary art, 50 years after his death, Piero Manzoni (1933-1963) is still an artist of great relevance today. A documentary made in collaboration with the Foundation that bears his name tells it all: “Piero Manzoni, Artist”, and which was presented yesterday at the Gallerie d'Italia in Milan. The documentary will subsequently be broadcast on Sky Arte HD.
His research, as well as his intuitions and innovations are still very present and recognizable in the superstar artists of the contemporary scene. Realized through direct testimonies of friends, family and artists who knew and frequented him, "Piero Manzoni, Artist" wants to reconstruct the man's personality, show his artistic journey through his works and unfinished projects, and explore the secret of its incredible topicality, also in the words of internationally renowned contemporary personalities and through an extensive documentary and audiovisual apparatus. Among the unpublished materials that emerged during the research, we note the extraordinary discovery of period films which constitute a very rare testimony of recorded images of the artist in some of his most famous creative actions, such as the eggs marked by his fingerprint destined to the Consummation of art or people signed as Living Sculptures. Author of works of extreme poetry, such as the Achrome series, which he created throughout his career, of real sparks of genius such as Linee and Corpi d'aria, and of the incomparable Base del mondo, Manzoni is also an intellectual in continuous research: creator of "Azimuth", an experimental magazine that hosts international artists of the caliber of Yves Klein, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Jean Tinguely, and of the Azimut gallery, a self-managed exhibition space that opens in the heart of the city of Milan.
In 1961, he created his most controversial, irreverent and caustic work: Artist's Shit, which has become one of the best-known icons of XNUMXth-century art, at the center of endless discussions, and elected – alternately – as a symbol of all that there is something contemptible or brilliant in contemporary art. Equipped with a brilliant and overflowing personality, Piero Manzoni seems to have lived his brief existence in a condition of total art, where life and his works merged into a single reality.
"There is nothing to say: there is only to be, there is only to live" (Piero Manzoni). Although he lived just twenty-nine years, Piero Manzoni is certainly one of the great names of contemporary art worldwide. Born in Soncino, in the province of Cremona on 13 July 1933, of an aristocratic family, Manzoni grew up in Milan, where he attended classical studies at the Jesuits before enrolling in the Faculty of Law at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.
Immediately attracted by the cultural environments that the family frequented, in 1955 he began to create paintings using the imprint of everyday objects such as nails, scissors and pliers, treating the surface of the canvas as a place to enclose reality. In 1956 he published the first of many manifestos that he would draw up during his career: For the discovery of an area of images. The activity of thinking and reasoning on the state of the art is a constant in Manzoni's artistic career, and the following year, on the occasion of an exhibition with Ettore Sordini and Angelo Verga at the Pater gallery in Milan, he publishes a new manifesto: For an organic painting. His battle against styles begins. In the same year he also co-signed the manifesto Contro lo stile drawn up by the Movimento Arte Nucleare, with which he exhibited at the exhibition at the San Fedele gallery in Milan. In the autumn of 1957 Manzoni began the creation of the Achrome: colorless paintings, in which the canvas covered first with plaster and then with kaolin is left to dry, producing variations in the surface.
They are the product of a research that pushes to release the internal energy of the painting rather than the alteration of its image thanks to the colour. The Achromes are characterized as the distinctive element of the artist's production which accompanies him continuously until his death, prompting him to deal with ever new materials. In addition to the canvas, Manzoni over time has used, for example, cotton wool, natural and synthetic fibers, polystyrene, even bread. In 1959 he began the creation of the Lines, continuous ink strokes that cross rolls of paper along their entire length: some exhibited open, others closed in black cylindrical boxes, with labels and wording showing the length, month and year of creation. With an exuberant and all-embracing character, with his presence he also enlivens the life of Milan by night. In 1959 he founded in Milan, with Enrico Castellani - with whom he formed a close friendship - first the magazine "Azimuth", dedicated to discussion and theoretical research (where he published Libera dimension, one of his fundamental texts), then the Azimut gallery , immediately one of the most significant artistic production spaces in the field of European avant-garde research. In addition to the numerous writings and hundreds of letters that he sends all over Europe to artists, gallery owners and newspapers, Manzoni does not hesitate to go in person to Germany, Denmark, France, to make his works and thoughts known. In 1960 he created the Corpi d'aria, pneumatic sculptures (rubber balloons) with a maximum diameter of 80 cm, which in addition to being inflated by the buyer, upon request and payment, can be inflated directly by Manzoni: in this case the body of air turns into artist's breath.
In the summer of 1960 he was invited to Denmark, thanks to the patronage of Aage Damgaard, a textile industrialist from Herning, to reside in his factory and experiment with materials and machinery. Here he creates his longest line (7200 meters), which he seals in a zinc and lead cylinder, with the intention of burying it in a city park. On 21 July 1960 he presented the first happening of Italian art at the Azimut gallery: Consumation of art, dynamics of the public, devouring art. The artist signs some hard-boiled eggs with his thumbprint, which are distributed to the public and eaten on the spot. He plans to sign living bodies as works of art, issuing them certificates of authenticity: this is how the Living Sculptures were born in 1961. In May 1961 he boxes and sells Artist's Shit, the work that for better or for worse makes him known all over the world. He then creates the Base of the world again in Herning: an iron parallelepiped turned upside down on the ground to elect the whole world as a work of art. He died of a heart attack in his studio in via Fiori Chiari, at the age of just 29, on February 6, 1963. On the radio, Lucio Fontana salutes him as one of the most important figures on the international art scene, whose inventions have opened countless doors for the art of future generations.
