Piero Manzoni Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Piero Manzoni (Soncino, 13 July 1933 – Milan, 6 February 1963) was an Italian artist, famous internationally for his Achrome and Merda d'arte. Piero Manzoni is the son of Egisto dei Conti Manzoni originally from Lugo (RA) and of Valeria Meroni originally from Soncino (CR). Read the full biography

Piero Manzoni (Soncino, 13 July 1933 – Milan, 6 February 1963) was an Italian artist, famous internationally for his Achrome and Merda d'arte. Piero Manzoni is the son of Egisto dei Conti Manzoni originally from Lugo (RA) and of Valeria Meroni originally from Soncino (CR). Belonging to the noble family of the scholar Alessandro Manzoni, Piero Manzoni grew up in Milan, where, after completing his classical studies with the Jesuits, in the Liceo Leone XIII (where his schoolmates were Nanni Balestrini and Vanni Scheiwiller), he enrolled in the Faculty of Law of Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan. His family frequented the Milanese artistic circles and Lucio Fontana, founder of spatialism and famous for the holes and cuts on the canvas. His first paintings were traditional oil landscapes and portraits. In 1955 he began to paint with imprints of banal objects (nails, scissors, tongs, etc.). In 1956 he participated in the "IV Market Fair" of the Sforzesco Castle in Soncino and published the manifesto For the discovery of an area of ​​images. A short text, in which Manzoni anticipates some essential points of the theses that he will develop in other documents. In 1957 he exhibited, with Ettore Sordini and Angelo Verga, in a group show at the Pater gallery in Milan and published the manifesto For an organic painting. He is also a co-signatory of the Manifesto against style with the Nuclear Group, with which he exhibited at the "Movimento Arte Nucleare" exhibition at the San Fedele gallery in Milan. He begins working on the Ipotesi canvases, with materials such as plaster and glue. In 1958 he developed the "assessment tables" and the "Achromes" (in French: colourless). The latter are canvases or other surfaces covered with rough plaster, kaolin, on squares of fabric, felt, cotton fiber, plush or other materials. He exhibits at the Bergamo Gallery and holds a solo show at the Pater Gallery in Milan with Enrico Baj and Lucio Fontana. In 1959 he left the Nucleari group and formed ties with Agostino Bonalumi and Enrico Castellani. With the latter he founded the magazine Azimuth, where writings by Vincenzo Agnetti, Nanni Balestrini and Edoardo Sanguineti appear and illustrations by Yves Klein, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Piero Dorazio, Gastone Novelli and Franco Angeli. Also in 1959, he came into contact with the Zero Group of Düsseldorf and, in addition to continuing his research on "Achrome", he began to create conceptual objects such as the "Lines" and planned to sign living bodies as if they were works of art, releasing "certificates of authenticity" (they will later be titled "Living Sculptures" and Umberto Eco, Marcel Broodthaers and Mario Schifano will also appear among the 71 he signs until 1961). It produces 45 "air bodies": common balloons filled with air which will later be called "artist's breath". At the Il Pozzetto gallery in Albissola he exhibits some "Lines", of various lengths, some open, others closed in black cylindrical boxes with orange labels and wording reporting length, month and year of creation, as well as certificates of authenticity. At the end of 1959, again with Castellani, the Azimut exhibition center opened; which will become a place of significant anti-informal artistic production. Here, in 1960 he exhibited with Klein, Mack and Castellani in the exhibition The new artistic conception and the second issue of the magazine Azimuth was published containing the text Libera dimension, with which he theorized total space. His style becomes more radical with new provocative works: he creates Sculpture in space; a pneumatic sphere of 80 cm in diameter, suspended on a jet of water. He returns to produce "air bodies" which are entitled Artist's Breath; balloons he inflated, sealed and fixed on a wooden base. He continues to produce "Lines", and on 4 July 1960 in Denmark, thanks to the patronage of Aage Damgaard, he creates his longest line (7200 metres), which he seals in a chromed metal cylinder and buries so that it can be found by chance in the future . On 21 July 1960 he presented his most famous performance at the Azimut centre: the Consumation of art, the dynamic of the public devouring art. Manzoni signs with his thumbprint some hard-boiled eggs (boiled at the beginning of the exhibition) which are distributed to the public and eaten on site. He continues to work on the "Achrome", using the most disparate materials, and designs the Magic Base: a pedestal signed by him which, in his intentions, elevates every person willing to stand on it to the role of a work of art. He exhibited with Castellani at the La Tartaruga gallery in Rome where he presented other "Achrome" and "living sculptures" which he signed live. Each sculpture is accompanied by a document of authenticity and a colored stamp indicating its duration (similar to the concept of product expiry). On April 24, during an evening with Angeli, he signed his right shoe and declared it a work of art, doing the same with a Schifano shoe. In May he boxes and puts on sale 90 30 g "Artist's Shit" at the price of the same number of grams of gold each. Make the second "Magic Base" and the "World Base"; an iron parallelepiped (90 x 100 cm) installed in the park of the Herning factory upside down on the ground to elect the world as a work of art. He continues to work on the "Achrome" and in 1962 he exhibits with the Zero group at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He died of a heart attack in his studio in Milan on 6 February 1963 at the age of 29.