Achromes de piero manzoni biography

Even in the brief span of a few years, from 1957 to February 1963, the figure of Piero Manzoni would permanently revolutionise how art is made and conceived.

From his debut in the informal sphere of the Nuclear movement to his encounter with Lucio Fontana in Albisola and the lesson taken from Yves Klein’s Monochromes, the artist moved towards more experimental research, specifying his theories on art as “scientifically-based procedure” in 4 manifestos.

The first Achrome is from 1957: a casting of gesso and Kaolin on the canvas with a still informal wall-like effect, but one in which the artist's intervention is kept to a minimum.

This series of works was designed as “one single uninterrupted surface” where the material becomes the focus on canvas in squares or wrinkled up: “...a white surface that is simply a white surface and nothing else (a colourless surface that is just a colourless surface).

Better than that: a surface that simply is: to be (and to be