Piero Manzoni died at the age of twenty-nine, in Milan, on February 6, 1963. 'That's already been done', somebody said. Manzoni coined the term ‘achrome’ to indicate the absence of colour, or what might be termed ‘uncolour’. At the age of 15 his father died from a heart attack, with Manzoni taking to art shortly after.Manzoni never formally trained or pursed an art education, but started to paint at the age of 17, working independently to create traditional landscapes and figurative works. John Miller
In the years following his premature death at the age of 29, he emerged as one the most significant figures in the postwar Avant-Garde. In the criminal case, the criminal judge disregarded the stylistic assessment presented by the court appointed expert (which was considered too subjective) and concluded that there was no evidence to demonstrate that Zecchillo had hired forgers to create the disputed works.Both decisions were appealed but, following Giuseppe Zecchillo’s death in 2011, the criminal trial came to an end and his son Graziano did not appeal the civil judgment. Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo, better known as Piero Manzoni (July 13, 1933 – February 6, 1963) was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. As a result, the standstill period set by the civil judge for the destruction of the works expired in 2015 and the 39 disputed artworks were destroyed last December.These decisions leave several legal issues in relation to alleged forgeries unresolved.
The Supreme Court has taken the view that, depending on the grounds of acquittal in the criminal trial, if the criminal trial was conducted as ordinary adversarial proceedings and resulted in a decision of acquittal, the civil judge should accept that the acquittal is undisputed and final.An interesting interpretation of the Foundation’s determination to remove ‘forgeries’ from the market has recently been put forward by Lionel Ceresi, a lawyer involved in a separate legal dispute involving the Manzoni Foundation. An inescapable making process: the getting rid of stuff; the recycling of material; the creation of a substance that stands as a testament to being alive; making ones mark; a non-hierarchical signature or sign of existence; an exegesis.At artschool, I had only seen the work itself in reproduction (of the poor, photo-copied kind), when I was asked to give a presentation and wanted to show a slide of one of Manzoni's works. Anyway, in the case of the cans, the frame and the contents fuse together, unlike the mutant substitute that I had accidentally given rise to, where the stool was clearly visible through the glass of the jar and there was no mention of artists or shit, just the name Piero Manzoni and the date 1.2.62, a bewildering reduction of one of the most reflexive works of art ever made.The Manzoni exhibition at the newly modernised Serpentine, allowed me to see in the flesh many works that I had only become familiar with in reproduction.
Due to the noble status of his family and his gregarious nature, Manzoni was a well-known and prominent social figure in the area throughout his early adulthood. A kind of Schrödinger's cat experiment where the results might also refer to the way in which the audience would enjoy direct contact, similar to Manzoni's hard boiled eggs of 1960, by swallowing the entire exhibition in 70 minutes. His aim was not to achieve a pure white but rather a total absence of colour. In the civil case, the judge considered the graphological analysis of Piero Manzoni’s signature and concluded that the works were forgeries, accordingly they must be destroyed on the expiry of the limitation period for challenging the decision on appeal.
Allegedly the cause of death was rupture of the liver from excessive consumption of rich food and drink. Manzoni produced a body of work that anticipated numerous future practices including Conceptual Art and Body Art. When I finally saw a decent picture of one of Manzoni's 90 Artist's Shit pieces, I was struck by the curious combination of references conjured up by the way that the shit had been framed. , Piero spent most of his childhood in Milan where he attended the prestigious Jesuit school Liceo Leone XIII. He discovers new totems and taboo whose age has the semen but not yet the consciousness.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. , ‘Your work is shit’ – the Italian artist Piero Manzoni was allegedly told by his father. The conversation moved on to something else.A while later I remember visualising an exhibition from someone's description: on the walls of a brilliant white space hung sheets of the artist's used toilet paper. Featured image: photo via artesky.it All images used for the illustrative purpose only. How would you get anyone to take it seriously?' They were not metaphors or allegories but just things... Achromes. The dispute was brought before both criminal and civil courts in Italy: in the civil proceedings, the Foundation asked the Milan Court of First Instance to examine the disputed works and confirm they were fakes. Piero Manzoni passed away suddenly in his studio on the 6Manzoni's poignant and humorous interventions into the art market of Italy after the Second World War stood out in their deep commitment to the questioning of what art is and could be through an almost prankish or subversively impolite quality.