Chrono-History

A number of events that took place between 1966 and 1969 marked crucial stages along the path towards the  dematerialisation of the art object - i.e. a the process which implied a transferral of working methods from the formal onto the cerebral plane...

The farther we progress into the 1980’s and the artistic period that has been characterised by the processes termed ‘Postmodernism’, ‘trans avant-garde’, ‘Hyper Mannerism’ and so on, the more difficult It has become to decide from which   standpoint we should view the art of the previous decade - the tumultuous 1970's - which represented a period of great change and even greater (though probably only  partially realised) efforts at change, as well as a period of  great aspirations, only some of them fulfilled. 

Two issues of the magazine, Azimuth and twelve exhibitions at the Azimut Gallery sum up the activities of Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani in Milan, at the end of 1959 and in the first half of 1960. 

The concept of ‘The Other Line’, which is conditional and ungrounded in art theory, anti­cipated and suggested the grasping of one particular set of events in contemporary Yugoslav art. These events were in  contrast to, or consciously distinct from, certain dominant streams in art; they formed a specific area, which basically aspired towards radicalisation of the notion of ‘art’ and, there­fore, towards the radicalisation of artistic be­haviour.