Piero Manzoni - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Sunday, June 29, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Manzoni Collection, Milan

  • Exhibited

    Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Piero Manzoni, 1971; Crema, Museo Civico, Omaggio a Piero Manzoni, 1971; New York, Sonnabend Gallery, Piero Manzoni, 1972; London, Tate Gallery, Klein/Mazoni, 1974

  • Literature

    Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni Catalogo Generale, Milan, 1975, p. 225, no. 15 (illustrated); Freddy Battino & Luca Palazzoli, Piero Manzoni Catalogue Raisonné, Milan, 1991, p. 452, no. 1016 BM (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    “At the beginning the Achrome is a simply white textured surface covered with rough gesso or impregnated with liquid kaolin. The Achrome is an empty space without lines or colours, devoid of any sign that might imply a meaning or a reminiscence of the artist’s work on the materials of art. The canvas, once imbued with liquid kaolin and glue, was left to dry. The raw material was transformed into a work of art by itself, throughout a self-sufficient process.While in Fontana’s and Pollock’s works the gesture of the artist participates to the corporeality of the artwork, Manzoni arrested and blocked the creative power of its own participation. The Achrome expresses itself as a pure signifier. Therefore the Achrome avoids the risk of repetition. It is not the work that is repetitive, but the gesture of the artist, who executes something already seen. The colorless surface is a ‘total space’, a tautological area repeatable to infinity, and infinitely unresolved.” (S.Capelli, Piero Manzoni’s Achromes taken from www.pieromanzoni.org)In this edition of Achrome Manzoni includes a small gift or package which can be translated into the wrapping of an idea, conceptual purity in the artists’ degree of manifestation, a newspaper sealed various times to re-enforce its contents which are left up to the viewer to speculate and mentally un-wrap.

370

Achrome

1961
Newspaper, wax, sealing rope and lead on canvas.
40 x 60 cm. (15 3/4 x 23 5/8 in).
Inscribed 'PIERO MANZONI' on a plaque lower right .

Estimate
£150,000 - 200,000 

Sold for £169,250

Contemporary Art Day Sale

30 June 2008, 10am & 2pm
London