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Lot Essay
"As the forms and ideas of one cultural period (including painting) become sterile, another cultural period begins. This happened around the beginning of our century. Not only was a new language born; our whole culture changed. And it is not just a matter of seeing differently: we see other things. Painting and painterly problems (the last post-Romantic residuals) are not part of the modern cultural cycle. They are long dead. Where they survive, they survive only as 'bad literature'. Reshufflings and modifications remain a part of the past. A new language and a total transformation are needed. The old language must be abandoned altogether. An artist can use only the materials (ideas and forms) of his time." (Piero Manzoni cited in, exh. cat., London, Serpentine Gallery, Piero Manzoni, London 1998, p. 140)
Executed in 1958, this large work belongs to the Achrome series that Manzoni created between 1957 and 1960. Referred to by Manzoni as "totems" of his creative aesthetic, the Achromes are ultimately an exploration in space. Manzoni rejected the idea of the canvas as an area in which the artist could express himself and argued that painting should express nothing but its own existence. His Achromes denounce traditional painting in their absence of all representation, image and colour while at the same time assert a new language of materials.
Believing that "the work of art has its origins in an unconscious impulse that springs from a collective substrata of universal values common to all men", Manzoni sought to tap into this "collective substrata" by trying to affirm purely what is and to let material express itself. Towards this end, the canvas of the Achrome is not painted but pleated and coated with kaolin and then allowed to dry. Through this method the process of creation is largely left to the material itself as it is purely through the drying process that the contours of the canvas finds their form.
In this work twelve rectangles are formed from the pleated surface of the canvas in a systematic play of texture and surface. The kaolin is left white in order not to evoke any associative, symbolic or representative meanings and to maintain the essential simplicity and purity of the work. "A painting," Manzoni insisted, "is of value in so far as it is a total being .... two toning colours or two tones of the same colour are already a relationship that is extraneous to the meaning of surface...' ('Manzoni Free Dimension' reproduced in, Azimuth no. 2, Milan 1960)
Executed in 1958, this large work belongs to the Achrome series that Manzoni created between 1957 and 1960. Referred to by Manzoni as "totems" of his creative aesthetic, the Achromes are ultimately an exploration in space. Manzoni rejected the idea of the canvas as an area in which the artist could express himself and argued that painting should express nothing but its own existence. His Achromes denounce traditional painting in their absence of all representation, image and colour while at the same time assert a new language of materials.
Believing that "the work of art has its origins in an unconscious impulse that springs from a collective substrata of universal values common to all men", Manzoni sought to tap into this "collective substrata" by trying to affirm purely what is and to let material express itself. Towards this end, the canvas of the Achrome is not painted but pleated and coated with kaolin and then allowed to dry. Through this method the process of creation is largely left to the material itself as it is purely through the drying process that the contours of the canvas finds their form.
In this work twelve rectangles are formed from the pleated surface of the canvas in a systematic play of texture and surface. The kaolin is left white in order not to evoke any associative, symbolic or representative meanings and to maintain the essential simplicity and purity of the work. "A painting," Manzoni insisted, "is of value in so far as it is a total being .... two toning colours or two tones of the same colour are already a relationship that is extraneous to the meaning of surface...' ('Manzoni Free Dimension' reproduced in, Azimuth no. 2, Milan 1960)