Lecture V

Nouveau Réalisme

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)

The Nouveau Réalisme Manifesto, signed by all of the original members in Yves Klein's apartment, 27 October 1960.

“…a poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality…"

-Pierre Restany

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Nouveau Réalisme or New Realism• As a movement, Nouveau Réalisme had its origins amidst the

abstraction of Europe’s L’Art Informel.• Artistic movement founded by art critic Pierre Restany and painter

Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan.

• Officially founded in Klein’s apartment Oct. 27, 1960.• The first exposition of the nouveaux réalistes took place in

November 1960 at the Paris "Festival d'avant-garde."• Pierre Restany wrote the original manifesto for the group, titled

the "Constitutive Declaration of New Realism," in April 1960, proclaiming, – "Nouveau Réalisme - new ways of perceiving the real.”– This joint declaration was signed by nine original members:

Yves Klein, Arman, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and the Ultra-Lettrists, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Jacques de la Villeglé.

– In 1961 they were joined by César, Mimmo Rotella, then Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps.

– Artist Christo joined the group in 1963.

The Nouveau Réalisme Manifesto, signed by all of

the original members in Yves Klein's apartment, 27

October 1960.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)

Characteristics of Nouveau Réalisme • Nouveau Réalistes confront the materialism

and consumerism of postwar society.• Nouveau Réalistes do not practice any one

particular brand of style, like many movements before it, Nouveau Réalisme is more an ideological approach to making art than a stylistic one.– The one connection would be the overarching use

of irony and humor.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)

• Nouveau Réalistes make use of mass-produced commercial objects.– This often draws comparison between their work and the work of Pop Art

artists in America.• Maintains close affiliation with the spirit of Dada.• Nouveau Réalistes make considerable use of collage and assemblage.

– They employ found objects in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp.– Their use of found objects is part of their process in making their art part of the

reality of the time.– The second Nouveau Réalisme manifesto, titled "40° above Dada" (40° au-

dessus de Dada) was written between 17 May and 10 June 1961. • Nouveau Réalistes sought to bring art and life closer together.• Advocated a return to "reality" in opposition to the lyricism of Abstract

Expressionism.• Expressed desire to avoid the figurative tradition.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Yves Klein (1928-1962)• Founder of the Zero Group and Nouveau Réalisme.• Dominant personality of Nouveau Réalisme.• Born to artist parents.

– Exposed to Paris’ avant-garde artists as a child through mother’s salons.

• Did not complete school and spent his life trying to prove he was intellectual.

• Very theatrical and hyperbolic personality.– He was very religious and and devoted to St. Rita

the patron saint of lost causes. He was also very interested in Zen Buddhism, the occult sciences, and the late 19th century Cosmogonie des Rose-Croix.

– His interest in mysticism set him apart from his collegeaues in Europe and America.

• His work had a performative nature and would set the stage for performance art, Minimalism, and Pop art.

Yves Klein during the work on the Gelsenkirchen Opera, 1959.

International Klein Blue and the "Epoca blu" Yves Klein (1928-1962)

• During the 1950s Klein develops the color, with the help of a chemist, called International Klein Blue (IKB).

• IKB is outside the range of computer displays and is therefore very hard to see and represent accurately on a website or computer screen.

• Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium.

• He used this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness of his own particular utopian vision of the world.

Synthetic ultramarine, similar to that used in IKB pigment. The formula for the pigment was first

mixed by Klein in 1958.

"First there is nothing, next there is a depth of nothingness, then a profundity of blue..."

-Yves Klein

Yves Klein, Blue Monochrome, 1961. Dry pigment in synthetic polymer medium on cotton over plywood,

6’4 ⅞” x 4’ 7 ⅛” Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

Synthetic ultramarine, similar to that used in IKB pigment. The formula for the pigment was first mixed by Klein in 1958.

International Klein Blue and the "Epoca blu”

"Blue has no dimension, it is outside dimension, while the other colours do have one. They are pre-psychological spaces... All the colours bring associations of concrete ideas... while blue at the most brings to mind the sea and the sky, what is anyway most abstract in tangible and visible nature".

-Yves Klein Yves Klein, Monochrome bleu (Monochrome Blue) (IKB 3), 1960. Pure pigment and synthetic resin on canvas

mounted on wood, 78” x 60”. Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

International Klein Blue and the "Epoca blu"

Yves Klein (1928-1962)• Monochrome bleu was produced

during Klein’s Blue Epoch period.• Like artists before him, Klein used

monochromatic abstraction (painting an entire canvas one color) as a strategy to challenge conventional expectations of painting.

• Historically, monochromatic paintings have been used to reduce painting to its most essential elements and provide the possibility for pure experience.

• Klein likened monochrome painting to an "open window to freedom.”

Yves Klein, Monochrome bleu (Monochrome Blue) (IKB 3), 1960. Pure pigment and synthetic resin

on canvas mounted on wood, 78” x 60”. Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

International Klein Blue and the "Epoca blu"

• Klein joins a list of artists including Malevich and Robert Rauschenberg in creating monochromatic canvases.

Yves Klein, Monochrome bleu (Monochrome Blue) (IKB 3),

1960. Pure pigment and synthetic resin on canvas

mounted on wood, 78” x 60”. Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

Black Square, Kazimir Malevich, 1913. Oil on canvas,

41 ¾” x 41 7/8”. The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Robert Rauschenberg, White Painting, (Three Panels), 1951. Oil on canvas, 72” x 108” .

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

International Klein Blue and the "Epoca blu" Yves Klein (1928-1962)• Monochrome bleu was first shown in a the

'Proposte Monochrome, Epoca Blu' exhibition at Milan’s , Gallery Apollinaire in 1957.– The canvases were hung on 20 poles around the

gallery and not on the wall (to increase spatial effect).

– The show was a success and traveled to London, Paris, and Düsseldorf.

• For Klein, the color represented unity, serenity, and “the supreme representation of the immaterial, the sovereign liberation of the spirit.”

• Unlike Abstract Expressionism and gestural movements before it, Klein’s monochromatic paintings display no evidence of the artist’s hand.

• By pricing each monochrome differently, he addresses the commodification of art challenging the art world’s practice of putting monetary value on the aesthetic experience.

Yves Klein, Monochrome bleu (Monochrome Blue) (IKB 3), 1960. Pure pigment and synthetic resin

on canvas mounted on wood, 78” x 60”. Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

Le Vide

"Recently my work with color has led me, in spite of myself, to search little by little, with some assistance (from the observer, from the translator), for the realization of matter, and I have decided to end the battle. My paintings are now invisible and I would like to show them in a clear and positive manner, in my next Parisian exhibition at Iris Clert's.”

-Yves Klein

Yves Klein, La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, Le

Vide (The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void) or Le Vide (The Void) displayed at the Iris Clert

Gallery, Paris, France, 1958.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Yves Klein (1928-1962)• When exhibited in 1958, Le Vide

consisted of an empty gallery of naked walls.

• Works like Le Vide bring a conceptualist element to Klein’s work and would influence future Conceptualist artists and works including Happenings and today’s contemporary version-Flash Mobs.– One can draw parallels to Klein’s

exhibition and that of Marcel Duchamp who barred the doors to his exhibition disallowing gallery-goers from entering.

Yves Klein, La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, Le Vide (The Specialization of Sensibility in the

Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void) or Le Vide

(The Void) displayed at the Iris Clert Gallery, Paris, France, 1958.

Yves Klein, Le Saut dans le Vide (Leap into the Void), 1960. Photomontage by Harry Shunk of a performance by Yves Klein at Rue Gentil-Bernard, Fontenay-aux-Roses, October 1960.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Yves Klein (1928-1962)• Klein’s Leap into the Void published in

1960, testifies to the theatrical nature of Klein’s work.

• Amongst many things, Klein was fixated with the possibility of flight and levitation.

• That interest is the subject of his Leap into the Void, altered to look as if the event of Klein leaping into the air was real when in actuality there were martial arts experts assisting him holding a tarp to catch him.

Yves Klein, Le Saut dans le Vide (Leap into the Void), 1960. Photomontage by Harry Shunk of a performance by

Yves Klein at Rue Gentil-Bernard, Fontenay-aux-Roses, October 1960.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Yves Klein (1928-1962)• Klein is probably best known for a group of

paintings called, The Anthropometries.• Conceived in 1960, The Anthropometries

were paintings created after nude female models, referred to as “living brushes” applied IKB to their bodies and moved around the canvas, placed sometimes on the floor and sometimes on the wall, as per instructed by Klein.

• Klein does not take part in the act of painting, he merely choreographs the act.

• These paintings were performances and Klein would often invite an audience and provide an orchestra for the show.

• The result, as seen to the right, is a stamp in IKB of the women’s bodies.

Yves Klein, Anthropometries, 1960. IKB pigment on canvas applied like a

stamp with the female body.

Yves Klein, Shroud Anthropometry 20, “Vampire,” c. 1960. Pigment on canvas, 43” x 30”. Private Collection.

Still from Anthropometry performance, Klein's 1949 The Monotone Symphony (a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence).

• His Anthropometries resemble prehistoric figures of the female form and interestingly, reinsert the figure into his paintings

Venus of Lespugue. This picture is a replica of one dated c. 6,000 BCE. Ivory, 6.” Discovered, 1922.

Yves Klein, Anthropometries, 1960. IKB pigment on canvas applied like a stamp with the female body. Centre Pompisou.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)

Yves Klein (1928-1962)• Another method the artist

used to create his paintings was to fire.

• To realize these works, Klein covered the canvas with flame retardant material, sometimes added colored paint, and then took a torch to burn away at the surface.

Yves Klein, Making of Fire Paintings at the testing plant of Gaz de France, La Plaine Saint-Denis,

1961.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)

Yves Klein (1928-1962)• Klein’s fire paintings, like his

Anthropometries, had a performative element.

• Ahead of his time, Klein was testing the boundaries of what would be accepted as art in the modern art world.

• By turning his creative act into a performative space beyond Pollock’s canvas, he introduced the spectator into the act.

• By introducing fire, he starts to deconstruct the necessity of pigment in the medium of painting. Yves Klein, Fire Painting, 1960. Flame

burned into asbestos with pigment, dimensions unpublished.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)• Klein’s fire paintings draw interesting parallel to Robert

Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning, 1953.

Yves Klein, Fire Painting, 1960. Flame burned into asbestos with pigment,

dimensions unpublished.

Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning, 1953. Traces of ink and crayon on paper, with mount and hand-lettered ink by Jasper Johns, 25.5” x 21.8” x

0.5”. San Francisco Museum of Art.

• Klein’s Anthropometries have inspired numerous artists in their own investigation into the nature of art- its history, authenticity of the art object and artist, as well as the identity of the artist.

Janine Antoni, Loving Care, 1992-1994. Performance, US-London.

Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, A Void, One out of 11 re-enactments,2007: Anthropometries of the Blue Period. Galerie Internationale Yves Klein, 1960, Dárte Contemporaine, Paris,.

Rachel Lachowicz, Red Not Blue, 1992. Documentation from performance, Los Angeles, CA. Photograph, 8” x 10”.

• Klein’s Anthropometries have even inspired high end advertisements.

• Here the Gaultier ad references Klein’s “living brushes”.

Jean-Paul Gaultier advertisement, c. 1999

“The machine allows me above anything ,to reach poetry.”

-Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960. Mixed media; self- destructing installation in the garden

of the Museum of Modern Art, NY.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Jean Tinguely (1925-1994)• Tinguely is best known for his

metamechanics, mechanized machines in the tradition of Dada.

• These kinetic works were parodic commentary on American conformity, commodity, and consumerism.

• Tinguely’s pieces were self-destructive and relied on “metamatics” or the allowance of chance and sound into his machines-sometimes to signal their demise or assist in the process or obliteration.

• He introduced his metamechanic pieces in 1955, as part of the Nouveau Réaliste objection to Abstract Expressionism and Tachisme.

Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960. Mixed media; self- destructing installation in the

garden of the Museum of Modern Art, NY.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Jean Tinguely (1925-1994)• Homage to New York, the best known of

his works, was to self-destruct before a live audience near New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

• The machine was designed with refuse from the city and would begin to breakdown after some musical component was played.– The stunt did not go as planned, the work

broke and caught on fire and needed to be put out with the help of the NYC Fire Department.

– The piece did not behave as hoped but the final outcome was what the artist ultimately intended-destruction.

Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960. Mixed media; self- destructing installation in the

garden of the Museum of Modern Art, NY.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930-2002)• Exhibited with Nouveau Réalistes from 1961-

1963.• Known for her “drip” paintings seen here.

– The technique applied to create these works had the artist firing a gun at balloons filled with pigment and fixed to the canvas.

– The bags would then “drip” paint onto the canvas creating her brand of drip paintings.

• Her work, like her colleagues, was satirical commentary on the process of action painting and introduced a performative component to her process. Niki de Saint-Phalle, Shooting Picture, 1961. Plaster, paint,

string, polythene, and wire on wood, 56 ¼” x 30 ¾”. Tate, London.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930-2002)• Saint-Phalle is best known for her

iconic Nana sculptures.• Her figures are exaggerated forms

of the female body decorated with bright colorful patterns.

• She uses papier-mâché or plaster in their construction.

• Nana has been duplicated countless times and the artist place one in each of the cities she visits.

Niki de Saint-Phalle, Black Venus, 1965-67. Painted polyester, 9’ 2 ¼” x 2’ 11” x

2’. Whitney Museum of Art, NY.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930-2002)• Her work, She, was a collaborative

piece with partner Tinguely and Swedish sculptor Per-Olof Ultvedt

• Originally exhibited in Stockholm in 1966, She has become a symbol for feminists worldwide and has earned Saint-Phalle a special position amongst feminist artists.

• The work was a 82’ high installation and exhibition space.– Visitors entered her vagina from a

ramp to see various installations.• Only the original head of the piece

survives but the work was re-created for MoMA’s 2007 exhibition “Wack!” which focused on the Women’s Art Movement.

Niki de Saint-Phalle, She-A Cathedral, 1966. Mixed-media sculpted environment, 20’ x 82’ x

30’. No longer extant.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Armand Fernández (1928-2005)Arman• Known for abandoning the

paintbrush as brush and instead employing it as the painting itself.

• Arman became known for his “accumulation” pieces-works that re-appropriate objects and place them within the function of art.

• Mama Mia takes a smashed violin and places it on a wood panel, commentary against a wasteful society that takes culture for granted.

Arman, Mama Mia, 1961. Collection of debris including wood, string, and metal,

36.6”x 26.4” x 4.7”.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)

Armand Fernández (1928-2005)Arman• His La Couleur de mon amour,

1966 takes paint tubes and inserts them into a clear female torso for display.

• The tubes empty into the stomach and lower portion of the mannequin creating a colorful stream of paint.

Arman, La Couleur de mon amour, 1966. Polyester with imbedded object, 35” x 12”. Collection Philippe Durand-Ruel,

Paris.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Arman (1928-2005)• Arman took inspiration from

German Dada artist, Kurt Schwitters in the creation of his poubelles, works that collect the waste of the community and turn it into art in an attack on the mindless consumerism of Americans.

• Long-Term Parking not only comments on waste but looks for the beauty in discarded materials.

Arman, Long-Term Parking, 1982. Collection 60 automobiles embedded in cement, 60’ x 20’ x 20’. Centre d’Art de

Montcel Jouy-en-Josas, France.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (b.1935)• Although he was not an official

member, Christo’s association with Nouveau Réalisme began in 1963

• Prior to his association with the group Christo was known for his wrapped packages, a process he continues on large scale still today.

• Christo shared Nouveau Réalisme’s interest in the everyday and the power to appropriate objects-he saw in recycled materials the ability for social transformation and aesthetic transcendence.

Christo, Package, 1962. Mixed media with fabric and twine, 11.2 “ x 8 .5” x

3.7”. Collection unknown.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Christo (b.1935)• Christo first began wrapping

commonplace objects in the late 1950s, early 1960s.– The items were usually something he

found around the house or studio space.

• Wrapped items include unidentifiable items like that in Package, a female, a Volkswagen Bug, and chair.

• The process of wrapping or binding has mystical connotations in various cultures.– The binding of power, the preparation of

something or someone being laid to rest. Christo, Package, 1962. Mixed media with fabric and twine, 11.2 “ x 8 .5” x

3.7”. Collection unknown.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)

• His wrapped works eventually grew to large scale and include Wrapped Reichstag, 1971-1995.

Christo and Jean-Claude, Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95.

Christo (b.1935)• Christo completely funds his

projects through moneys made from selling the sketches, notes, and other ephemera from the creation of the piece.

• The realization of each work is decades in the making as the artist makes applying for permit, court hearings, and community meetings a performative aspect of the work.

Christo, Wrapped Reichstag, Project for Berlin. Drawing 1987 in two parts: Pencil, pastel,

charcoal, wax crayon and map, 15" X 96" and 42" X 96”. Private Collection.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Christo (b.1935)

– 1958 Christo meets his future wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude, in Paris.

• The two share a birthday.

– Almost immediately, they began to collaborate on Christo’s large wrap projects.

– It was not until 1994, however, that Jeanne-Claude’s name is attached retroactively to the installation pieces they created together.

Portrait of Jeanne-Claude and Christo at The Gates, New York City 2005.

Nouveau Réalisme (1960-1970)Christo (b.1935)• Wall of Oil Barrels/ The Iron Curtain was

created before Christo’s association with Nouveau Réalisme.

• It is the first collaborative work created with his wife, Jeanne-Claude.

• Both Christo and Jeanne-Claude claim the subject of their works is always and only aesthetic impact.

• Still, works like Wall of Oil Barrels brings to mind the Hausmannization of Paris under Napolean III in effort to widen the streets, modernize Paris, and do away with the smaller streets that harbored revolutionaries.

• In addition, the possibilities of some environmental statement, commentary on consumption, and access must be considered.

Christo, Wall of Oil Barrels/ The Iron Curtain, rue Visconti Paris, 27 June

1962. Rolls of paper, oil barrels, tarpaulin and rope. Duration: two

weeks.Photograph by Jean-Dominique Lajoux.

Christo and Jeanne-ClaudeWrap Projects

Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980-83. 6.5 million square feet of floating pink

fabric. Island perimeters extended a total of 200 feet.

Christo, Surrounded Islands, Project for Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, collage 1983. Ball-point pen, colored

pencil, graphite, enamel paint, photograph by Wolfgang Volz,and tape, on paper, 12 ½” x 13. Private Collection.

Contemporary Projects-Realized

Christo, The Umbrellas, Joint Project for Japan and U.S.A., collage 1991, pastel, enamel paint, graphite, colored pencil, wax crayon, aerial photograph with

topographic contour map, technical data, and fabric sample, on two sheets of paperboard, in two parts: 30 ½” x 12 and 30 ½” x 26 ¼” overall: 30 ½” x 39 ¼”.

Christo (b. 1935) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009)• The Umbrellas was designed in

vivid blue for the verdant environment of Japan and in bright yellow for arid southern California.

• Structural components were the same: each umbrella stood more than 19 feet high, opened to a 28-foot diameter, and weighed 448 pounds

Contemporary Projects-Realized

Christo, The Umbrellas, Joint Project for Japan and U.S.A., collage 1991, pastel, enamel paint, graphite, colored pencil, wax crayon, aerial photograph with topographic contour map, technical data, and fabric sample, on two sheets of paperboard, in two parts: 30 ½” x 12 and 30 ½” x 26 ¼”

overall: 30 ½” x 39 ¼”.

Christo, The Umbrellas, Joint Project for Japan and U.S.A., collage 1991, pastel, enamel paint, graphite, colored pencil, wax crayon, aerial photograph with topographic contour map, technical data, and fabric sample, on two sheets of paperboard, in two parts: 30 ½” x 12 and 30 ½” x 26 ¼”

overall: 30 ½” x 39 ¼”.

Contemporary Projects-Realized

• One of their more recent projects was The Gates in Manhattan’s Central Park.

• The Gates lines 23 miles of pedestrian paths from Feb. 12 to 27, 2005.

• The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005. 7,503 vinyl gates, with free-flowing nylon fabric panels, anchored to 15,006 steel bases.

• Duration: 16 days.

• Viewers were given a swatch of material from the gates if they asked questions from the guides; the material, like all their work, was environmentally responsible.

Christo (b. 1935) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009)

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Gates, 2005. Metal, synthetic materials, concrete, Central

Park, NYC.

Contemporary Projects-Realized

Christo (b. 1935) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009)

• The Gates was conceived in the 1970s and took approximately 20 years to realize.

• The project cost $21 million and was funded entirely by Christo and Jeanne-Claude through selling sketches like this one to the right that chronicle the piece from inception to realization. Christo, Ten Thousand Gates, (Project),

1979. Pencil, charcoal, pastel, and tape, 11” x 14”. Private Collection.

Works In Progress• Future works include Mastaba and The River.

Christo, The River, 1992. Pencil, charcoal, wax crayon, ballpoint pen and cardboard, 14” x 11”. Collection of the

artist.

Christo, Mastaba (Project for the United Arab

Emirates), 1977. Pencil, wax crayon, charcoal, and

pastel, 22” x 28”

1960s Italian Conceptual Art: Arte Nucleare

Piero Manzoni (1933-1963)• Foundation for much of 1960s and

1970s Conceptualist art.• Klein’s 'Proposte Monochrome, Epoca

Blu' exhibition at Milan’s , Gallery Apollinaire in 1957 was a particular influence on the artist’s future work.

• Along with the other members of the Nuclear Group, Manzoni rejected personal style and like his Futurist predecessors, desired some extreme acts to propel humanity into the postnuclear age.

Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1959. Kaolin on pleated canvas, 55

1/8” x 47 ¼”. Musée National d’Art, Moderne, Centre d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou.

1960s Italian Conceptual Art: Arte Nucleare

Piero Manzoni (1933-1963)• Manzoni’s Achrome paintings were

conceived after seeing Klein’s monochromatic paintings.

• The achrome paintings are devoid of imagery and include a neutral canvas.

• The paintings vary in size and media.• Some, like Achrome (1959) recall the

work of Spatialist artist, Lucio Fontana.

Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1959. Kaolin on pleated canvas, 55

1/8” x 47 ¼”. Musée National d’Art, Moderne, Centre d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou.

1960s Italian Conceptual Art: Arte NuclearePiero Manzoni (1933-1963)• Italian artist heavily influenced by the

Dada work of Marcel Duchamp but difficult to place into any one style.

• His work, like Nouveau Réalistes incorporates humor, parody, and sarcasm.

• It attacks the commodification of art and the consumerism of modern culture.

• His art emphasized the conceptual-the importance of the artist and artistic act.

• Artist’s Breath addresses the Renaissance and Romantic tradition of the artist as genius.

Piero Manzoni, Artist’s Breath, 1960. Balloon, wood, and lead

seals, 1.38” x 7” x 7.3”. Tate, London.

• Manzoni’s play on the Romantic notion of the artist as genius extended to his exploration of the artist’s waste.

• In a Duchampian inspired act, Manzoni canned his shit and sold it by weight. – An act exclaiming that even the artist’s shit

has cultural and economic value.

(Left) Piero Manzoni, Merda d’artista, c. 1961. The artist pictured holding one of his cans of shit “made” 1961. (Right) One of the cans of shit produced by the artist. Each can weighs 30 grams

with priced being determined by weight of contents and the current value of gold. The cans were numbered from 1-90. This one may be “#2.”

• Inspired by Klein’s “living brushes” Manzoni created “living sculptures” by signing men and women alike, documenting it with paperwork, and recording it on film.– Some of these “living sculptures” are still alive today.

Yves Klein with a young woman from his Anthropometries series, c. 1960.

Piero Manzoni signing one of his Living Sculptures, 1960.