Manzoni: Azimut

On December 4, 1959, Azimut opened in the sub-basement of a furniture store on a narrow street around the corner from La Scala in Milan with an exhibition of Manzoni´s most radical work to date: Linee (Lines), drawings of a single line on a length of paper, signed, rolled up and sealed in a cardboard tube, which he then labeled. A youthful, experimental exhibition space that lasted just eight months, Azimut presented thirteen exhibitions and became a nerve center for an international set of provocative young artists. The founding of the gallery by Manzoni and Enrico Castellani, with the help of their mentor Lucio Fontana, followed their collaboration on Azimuth, a journal dedicated to the "development of the newest and youngest avantgarde painting." Featuring works by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Heinz Mack, Jean Tinguely, and Yves Klein, Azimuth´s two issues stand as essential documents of a radical “new conception” of art at the end of the 1950s.