PIERO MANZONI — Exhibition Catalogue, Galerie Mathias Fels & Cie, Paris, 1969

Published six years after Manzoni’s death, this catalogue belongs to the first period in which his brief and radical practice was being organised into an art-historical position. The exhibition at Galerie Mathias Fels & Cie, 138 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris, ran from 18 December 1969 to 31 January 1970, with a text by Otto Hahn.

Beginning in 1957, Manzoni removed colour from his work through the Achromes: white surfaces made from kaolin-soaked canvas and later from materials including cotton, bread rolls, polystyrene and fibreglass. The object was not painted white; it was intended to exist without colour or composition, determined instead by the physical behaviour of its material.

The catalogue extends from these apparently silent surfaces to Manzoni’s more overt challenges to artistic authorship. Photographs show works made from cotton and fibreglass alongside the artist signing a model as a living sculpture. In related works, Manzoni authenticated people, enclosed lines inside cylinders and packaged the supposed contents of his own body. The signature, certificate and artist’s name became materials capable of changing an object’s status.

The cover reproduces the dense surface of an Achrome at almost actual scale, withholding title and artist’s name. The publication begins as texture before becoming information. A work from the exhibition later retained Galerie Mathias Fels in its provenance and is specifically recorded as having been illustrated in this catalogue.

18 × 26 cm. 18 pages. Staple-bound exhibition catalogue; black-and-white reproductions; text in French. Condition: good vintage condition. Age toning and foxing to the wrappers, with light handling wear, surface marks and minor edge and corner softening. Internally complete and generally clean.

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