Author Description

Few artists have combined conceptual ingenuity with devastating critique as deftly and wittily as Piero Manzoni (1933–1963). This comprehensive survey accompanies a major retrospective at the Städel in Frankfurt (the first major Manzoni retrospective outside Italy in more than two decades), and is published on the occasion of what would have been his eightieth birthday. It reproduces more than 100 works from all phases of the artist's brief but massively influential career, from his early Klein-influenced monochromes (or "Achromes") and the Art Informel years to his role as a leading member of the Zero group (alongside Mack, Piene, Tinguely, Klein, Fontana) and beyond.