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Piero Manzoni Quotes

Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo, better known as Piero Manzoni was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to 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 after World War II. Italian artists such as Manzoni had to negotiate the new economic and material order of post-war Europe through inventive artistic practices which crossed geographic, artistic, and cultural borders.

Manzoni died of myocardial infarction in his studio in Milan on February 6, 1963. His contemporary Ben Vautier signed Manzoni's death certificate, declaring it a work of art. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. July 1933 – 6. February 1963
Piero Manzoni photo
Piero Manzoni: 16 quotes0 likes

Famous Piero Manzoni Quotes

“So it is obvious that at first glance there would seem to be a paradox: the more we immerse ourselves in ourselves, the more open we become, since the closer we get to the germ of our totality the closer we are to the germ of totality of all men. We can therefore say that subjective invention is the only means of discovering objective reality, the only means that gives us the possibility of communication between men”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 18-19

“.. a single uninterrupted and continuous surface from which anything superfluous and all interpretative possibilities are excluded. [referring to his 'Achromes', Manzoni started to make in 1957]”

Piero Manzoni

Quote of Manzoni, in Display Caption of 'Achrome' 1958 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/manzoni-achrome-t01871', Tate, July 2008]

“You [=Yves Klein ] are the 'monochrome bleu' and I am the 'monochrome blanc'; we should start to cooperate together, we two. [Manzoni's remark, during their first meeting]”

Piero Manzoni

Source: De Tweede Helft', Ad de Visser, 1998, p. 161

“I sell an idea, an idea in a can.”

Piero Manzoni

Quote of Manzoni, (refering to his art-work in 1961 'Artist Shit'); as cited on 'Heart', in the aricle 'More about Piero Manzoni' http://www.heartmus.dk/en/about-heart/our-collection/piero-manzoni/more-about-piero-manzoni.html

“The foundations of the universal value of art are given to us now by psychology. This is the common base that enables us to sink its roots to the origins before man and to discover the primary myths of humanity. The artist must confront these myths and reduce them, by means of amorphous and confused materials, to clear images. Since these are atavistic forces that have their origins in the subconscious, the work of art takes on a magical significance.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 16-17

“The work of art has its origin in an unconscious impulse that springs from collective substrata of universal values common to all men, from which all men draw their gestures, and from which the artist derives the 'archaic' of organic existence. Every man of his own accord extracts the human element from this base, without realizing it, and in an elementary and immediate way.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 16-17

Piero Manzoni Quotes about art

“Where the artist is concerned it is a question of the conscious immersion in himself, through which, once he has got beyond the individual and contingent level, he can probe deep down to reach the living germs of total humanity. Everything that is humanly communicable is derived from this, and it is through the discovery of the psychic substrata that all men have in common that the relationship of author-work-spectator is made possible. In this way the work of art has the totemic value of living myth, without symbolic or descriptive dispersion: it is a primary and direct expression.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 16-17

“When I blow up a balloon, I am breathing my soul into an object that becomes eternal. [Manzoni's quote of 1960, referring to his art-work 'Artist's Breath']”

Piero Manzoni

Source: 'Piero Manzoni', exhibition catalogue, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, p.144

“Why not to set free these forms? Why not trying to uncover the infinite meaning of absolute space, the meaning of pure and absolute light? [Manzoni is referriung to the colourless, but still matter-made art paintings, made by Zero artists, around 1950-60]”

Piero Manzoni

Source: De Tweede Helft', Ad de Visser, 1998, p. 159

Piero Manzoni Quotes

“You [Dutch Zero-artist, Henk Peeters] take the North of Europe, I'll take the South. Switzerland will be our neutral zone where we shall have our common exhibition. (Manzoni's reaction when Henk Peeters accused him of plagiary]”

Piero Manzoni

Source: De Tweede Helft', Ad de Visser, 1998, p. 161

“To arrive at such a discovery, fruit of a log and precious education, involves a whole field of precise technique. The artist must immerse himself in his own anxiety, dredging up everything that is alien, imposed or personal in the derogatory sense, in order to arrive at the authentic zone of values.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 18-19

“The key point today is to establish the universal validity of individual mythology... The artistic moment is therefore that in which the discovery of pre-conscious universal myths comes about, and in the reduction of these into the form of images. It is clear that if the artist is to be able to bring to light zones of myth that are authentic and virginal he must have both an extreme degree of self-awareness and the gifts of iron precision and logic.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 16-17

“There comes a point where individual mythology and universal mythology are identical. In this context it is clear that there can be no concern with symbolism and description, memories, misty impressions, of childhood, pictoricism, sentimentalism: all this must be absolutely excluded. So must every hedonistic repetition of arguments that have already been exhausted, since the man who continues to trifle with myths that have already been discovered is an aesthete, and worse.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 18-19

“I would like to draw a white line covering the complete Greenwich meridian.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: De Tweede Helft', Ad de Visser, 1998, p. 160

“Abstractions 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. Images which are absolute as possible, which cannot be valued for that which they record, explain and express, but only for that which they are to be.”

Piero Manzoni

Source: For the Discovery of a Zone of Images', Piero Manzoni, 1957, pp. 18-19

“I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins..”

Piero Manzoni

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