1960 AZIMUTH 2

In Azimuth the texts were variously in Italian, French, English and German, evidence of the international scope adopted by the exhibition at Azimut gallery. Manzoni published a new theoretical text, the first for almost two years, that was entitled “Libera dimensione” (Free Dimension) and among other things stated, “The question for me is that of creating an integrally white surface (yes, integrally colourless, neutral) which is completely unrelated to any pictorial phenomenon or to any element that is extraneous to the value of the surface. It is a white that is not a polar landscape, or a beautiful or evocative material, or a sensation, or a symbol or anything else; it is a white surface that is nothing else but a white surface (a colourless surface that is nothing else but a colourless surface). Or better still, it exists, and that is sufficient. It is, and to be totally is pure becoming. This indefinite surface, uniquely alive, even if in the material contingency the work cannot be infinite, is, however, infinitable, infinitely repeatable, without a solution of continuity. And that is even more apparent in the ‘lines’ for in these there no longer exists the possible ambiguity of the ‘painting’. The line develops only in length and extends towards infinity. The only dimension is time.” This occasion saw the first use of the term Achrome which was to become definitive.