Between Zero and Body: Manzoni’s Early Reception in the United States

The essay reconstructs Manzoni's early reception in the United States, starting from the retrospective show held at Sonnabend Gallery in New York in 1972, travelling to three other venues in the country. A special attention is paid to the role of Jan van der Marck's extensive take on the artist as well as the early accounts of the reception of his work among American critics. In this respect, the Merda d'Artista and the status - midway between Dadaist conceptualism and the more provoking body art - in the words of American critics is emphasized and contextualized within the tendencies defining the art criticism in the United States around the mid-1970s.