Italian artist created wry, but serious, works

Piero Manzoni, who became famous in Italy before his death in 1963 at age 29, challenged conceptions of art as Marshall Plan funds flowed in after World War II and his nation shifted from agrarian to industrial.

He also lampooned celebrity and consumer culture, worked with non-traditional materials and believed that the creator alone determined what is art.

As chronicled in a video on display at a new exhibit, Total Space, at Magazzino Italian Art in Philipstown, Manzoni dipped his thumb in ink, imprinted hard-boiled eggs and placed them in small boxes. He blew up balloons for his Artist's Breath series but really grabbed attention with 90 tins of Artist's Shit. No one knows what's inside the cans; even before Warhol, Manzoni made a bold statement about the art world and its pretenses.

"Many a truth is told in jest," says Greg Slick, the museum's chief docent. "He lets us into his art with a smile, but he was dead serious about it."

Several examples of Manzoni's iconoclastic approach are on view at Magazzino, which specializes in the Arte Povera movement that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Manzoni exerted a major influence on the loosely affiliated group of artists who expanded his ideas into new frontiers.

In a cavernous gallery with booming echo and the statement "Stand Here You Are Art" in bold black on the back wall, Manzoni's "Magical Base" (a wood pedestal) offers visitors the chance to play statue and get a good photo op.

Also included are six works from the artist's Achrome series, a word he concocted that translates to "anti-color." All the work is whiteish, but the focus is on texture. They are differentiated by dates. A folded canvas created in 1958-59 looks like undulating water. Another, made in 1958 from plaster and kaolin on canvas, resembles a slab of stone; a 1960 piece frames a stack of eight polystyrene squares.

Two significant works on display are the roughly 10-foot cubic spaces commissioned by the artist's family foundation in conjunction with the gallery Hauser & Wirth, based on a concept briefly mentioned in a letter the artist wrote to a friend in 1961.

In the Lower Gallery

Three decanters visible as visitors descend the stairs into Magazzino's lower gallery provide a harbinger of the heart-stopping works in the exhibition Yoichi Ohira: Japan in Murano.

Ohira studied in Venice and designed elaborate vessels after becoming artistic director of de Majo glassworks on the island of Murano in 1987. Drawings outlining his intentions hang on the wall. Italian craftsmen executed the details with precision, and Ohira credited the glassblowers and the carvers, as well.

The work, primarily executed by maestro Livio Serena, evokes a wide range of textures, some of which resemble wood or ceramics. Several vessels present optical illusions: In the Pasta vitrea series, some of the shapes appear to rise from the surface. Others are specked with colorful chips that seem to be recessed, but everything is flat. For fans of the glassblower's art, run, don't walk.

The museum owns the rooms, designed by architect Stephanie Goto. During a preview opening, RAI, the Italian public broadcast outlet, interviewed curator Nicola Lucchi, who is the museum's director of research and education.

The patterns in "Hairy Room," whose interior consists of faux white fur, are almost psychedelic. In the also-trippy "Phosphorescent Room," the light switches on and off every 30 seconds. In one mode, the walls and ceiling are fluorescent neon green; the other flips the tint to beige-yellow as the light emanates from the floor.

Manzoni may have equated art with excrement to pull people in but, for better or worse, his provocations helped push the philosophical boundaries of conceptual creativity to its extremes during his lifetime.

Magazzino, at 2700 Route 9, is open Friday to Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $20 ($10 seniors, students, disabled visitors; $5 ages 5 to 10...