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My Preoccupation with Piero Manzoni

Why does the work of Piero Manzoni haunt me? Even after all these years, I still don’t know. But I know that ever since I learned about it, it has preoccupied me. In 1995 I curated an exhibition entitled Piero Manzoni: Line Drawings. For this purpose, I traveled to Herning, a small city in the Jutland peninsula, where Manzoni created some of his most important works. His art patron, Aage Damgaard, a textile manufacturer, gave him free materials. Manzoni produced numerous line drawings there, many on fabric. Then decided to put them in containers for people to buy the idea of the line. Once, I thought Manzoni’s idea of the line would be a terrific topic for a novel, then found out that the Italian artist Paolo Barrile had written one. The novel is called The Last Line of Piero Manzoni. I just started reading it for the fourth time.

Contributor

Alma Ruiz

ALMA RUIZ is senior curator at MOCA, Los Angeles.

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The Brooklyn Rail

OCT 2014

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