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Piero Manzoni Quotes
1933–1963
Piero Manzoni (July 13, 1933 – February 6, 1963) was an Italian artist; best known for his ironic and independent approach to avant-garde art. Often his art is compared to the work of Yves Klein.
Random Piero Manzoni quote
9 quotes
I would like to draw a white line covering the complete Greenwich meridian.
I sell an idea, an idea in a can.
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]
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']
..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]
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.
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.
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. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his.
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 referring to the colourless, but still matter-made art paintings, made by Zero artists, around 1950-60]