International Exhibition of Nothing

International Exhibition of Nothing (Esposizione internazionale del Niente) was a modern art and conceptual movement which originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, based on nothing, on emptiness, on the invisible, the pieces are an "empty space".

The Publishing manifestos of International Exhibition of Nothingit has been a feature of the invisible art movement led by Piero Manzoni.

 History 
International Exhibition of Nothing is an exhibition invented in 1960 by a group of artists including Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Carl Laszlo, Heinz Mack, in which an exhibition of invisible works was represented, the exhibition will then be exhibited again a year later in the Netherlands.
In 2015, the exhibition is once again held in Milan in collaboration with the Manzoni Foundation, which will also exhibit the original "Manifesto" of the time, which was published in Basel in 1960.

 Concepts of the invisible 
Collectors, the fetishists of and best of all, will never really buy the work, but the instrument that allows it to become one, and which remains a constant testimony (fetish itself, then) that the truth doesn’t actually make you can ever truly own it .
The disappearance of the artwork, its evacuation also as an object after being subtracted as a “work”, as a displayed artifact, is the passage summarized between the choice of “Zero” (ZERO) and the choice of “Zero”. “Moi aussi je suis contraire au titre "‘Zero’". "‘Nul’" est beaucoup mieux. […] W NUL”. 
Manzoni writes to Henk Peeters, who is organizing the exhibition, which will open on March 9, 1962 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The abandonment of the starting point is the abandonment of the project, the step-by-step of the construction choice, which, even if without intentions and statements, becomes proof only by existence. The idea of "Zero" was theoretically foreseen in 1960 by the drafting of the "Manifesto against Nothing for the International Exhibition of Nothing", signed in Basel by Manzoni with Brock Base, Enrico Castellani, Rolf Fenkart, Carl Laszlo, Mack, Onorio, Piene and Herbert Schuldt, in which it is said that: “Canvas is hardly worth canvas. Sculpture is almost as good as no sculpture. A car is almost as beautiful as no car. Music is almost as enjoyable as no noise. No art market is as fruitful as the art market. Something is almost nothing (nothing) ”.

The legacy of Vacuum 
The exposition of the void is a kind of "non-exposition" in a completely Dada key, promoted by the editor of the magazine "Panderma" Carl Laszlo, which leaves traces in the Manifesto against nothing for the International Exhibition of Nothing, published in Basel:"Sale of nothing, numbered and signed. The price list is available to the public. No one will speak at the inauguration. Nothing is reproduced on this catalog". The signatories are Laszlo, Manzoni, Castellani, Rolf Fenkart, Mack, Piene, Herbert Schuldt, and others.
The exhibition of the emptiness, in which invisible works are exhibited, picks up the concepts of Yves Klein, Gino De Dominicis, and Marcel Duchamp but also the concept of ready readymade by Andy Warhol, Salvatore Scarpitta, Jeff Koons and the innovative concept of the invisibility of Salvatore Garau.

 Main Manifesti 
 Alfred Jarry, Patafisica (1896)
 Marcel Duchamp
 Vanishing Point, Jean Baudrillard
 Souvenirs de James Joyce, Philippe Soupault
 Pensiero di Bergson, premio Nobel (1927)
 Esposizione internazionale del Niente, Milano, 1960
 International Exhibition of Nothing, Amsterdam, 1961
 Invisible: Art about the Unseen 1957-2012, Londra, 2012
 Esposizione internazionale del Niente, Milano, 2015
 Buddha in contemplation, Piazza della Scala, Milano, 2021

 Main works: "When art is invisible" 
 Uberto Boccioni, the space in futurism
 Alighiero Boetti, the space in futurism
 Gino Severini, the space in futurism
 Marcel Duchamp, Airs de Paris (1919)
 Marcel Duchamp, Fontana (1917), Ready-made
 Piero Manzoni, Corpo d'aria ("Body of Air", 1959-1960)
 Piero Manzoni, Fiato d'artista 
 John Cage,  music 4′33″, four minutes, thirty-three seconds of silent piece (1952)
 Piero Manzoni, Achrome (1957-1963), invisible colors
 Yves Klein, Vacuum (1958)
 Lucio Fontana, I tagli (1958)
 Gino De Dominicis, Cubo invisibile (1967), represented by a square drawn on the ground
 Jeff Koons, Vacuum Cleaner (1981), Ready-made, MOMA
 Salvatore Garau, I Am (2020), represented by a circle and a rectangle drawn on the ground
 Damien Hirst,  Ping Pong''
 Alighiero Boetti, MOMA

References

Bibliography 
 Giorgio Di Genova, "Storia dell'arte italiana del '900: Generazione anni Trenta", 2000, ISBN 9788885345812
 Francesco Tedeschi, "Lo spazio ridefinito: Aricò, Castellani, Coletta, Dadamaino, Garutti, Nagasawa, Pinelli, Staccioli, Vago, Varisco," 1998, ISBN 9788820212766
 Il Vieri, 1971

Other websites 
  Video "The invisible on display in Milan", 2015, Video
  "Da Zero a Niente. Piero Manzoni a confronto

Art movements