Achrome

Consisting of twelve fabric squares stitched together in an elegant grid, Piero Manzoni’s Achrome, 1959-1960, is a significant example from the artist’s career-defining homonymous series, the Achromes. Begun in 1957 and continued until Manzoni’s premature death in 1963, these works presented a radical challenge to the conventions of the period; in them, Manzoni purged his picture planes of all colour and subjectivity to upend the very definition of art. In Achrome, the unadorned lattice both emphasises the physical presence of the canvas and eradicates any sign of the artist’s own hand. As Manzoni explained, ‘The question as far as I’m concerned is that of rendering a surface completely white (integrally colourless and neutral) far beyond any pictorial phenomenon or any intervention extraneous to the value of the surface. A white that is not a polar landscape, not a material in evolution or a beautiful material, not a sensation or a symbol or anything else: just a white surface that is simply a white surface and nothing else (a colourless surface that is just a colourless surface)’ (P. Manzoni, ‘Free Dimension’, Azimuth, no. 2, Milan, 1960, in Piero Manzoni: Paintings, Reliefs & Objects, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1974, pp. 46-47). For his Achromes, Manzoni dipped canvas in kaolin clay and used materials as diverse as cotton, wool, fur, and bread rolls, all with the aim of liberating his surfaces. Born out of the radical redefinition of painting inspired by the pioneering post-war Italian artists Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri, Manzoni’s practice both continued and disrupted the quest for a new pictorial materiality. While these works acknowledge the history of the monochrome, they do so mischievously and playfully. In refusing to submit to expectations, the Achromes are free to reimagine painting and open themselves up to limitless possibility.