Francesco Conz

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Francesco Conz (* 1935 in Cittadella near Padua ; † April 5, 2010 in Verona ) was a collector and publisher of Viennese Actionism , the Fluxus movement , and concrete , visual and sound poetry .

Live and act

Francesco Conz comes from a middle-class Austro-Hungarian family who, under Thurn and Taxis, had the monopoly of organizing pilgrimages between Innsbruck and Padua in the 19th century . He was born in one of the places along the route, in Citadella near Padua. He studied economics and law at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan . A trip to Europe took him to Paris , where, as an employee of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpsons , he was allowed to use their extensive library for a few months in their exile in Paris and developed an interest in the interfaces between art and literature. He then worked as a window dresser in London in the department stores of the LIBERTY company on Regent Street . Later he went to Germany, where he was employed as a camera assistant for German television in Hamburg . In Spain, Conz attended the Menéndez Pelayo International University , a summer university, and studied literature there .

After his return to Italy, Francesco Conz opened a gallery in Venice in 1972 , where he exhibited Italian pop artists . In the same year he met Joe Jones, composer and Fluxus member, René Block and Günter Brus in Berlin ; the latter mediated the meeting with Hermann Nitsch . Conz closed his gallery in Venice and rented the Palazzo Baglioni in Asolo , a historical place near Venice and Treviso . That was the beginning of today's collection and today's archive. He invited artists to do actions, happenings and other works directly in Asolo. Joe Jones lived there for seven years and Takako Saito stayed for six months. Other artists were Hermann Nitsch, who worked on his Asolo room there, Günter Brus produced nine wooden panels in Asolo, titled "I Cardinali" or "La Croce del Veneto". Other visitors were Otto Muehl , Walter Marchetti, Juan Hidalgo, Nam June Paik , Charlotte Moorman, Daniel Spoerri , Edith Adam, Ludwig Hoffenreich, Al Hansen, Jon and Geoffrey Hendricks and Kosugi. Many others visited him, such as Peter Moore, Alison Knowles , Bob Watts, Philip Corner , Gerhard Rühm , Carolee Schneemann , Milan Knížák , Jackson MacLow , Ay-O, Vincent Trasov, Emmett Williams and Ann Noël.

In 1974 he traveled to New York with Günter Brus, Hermann and Beate Nitsch , where he met John Cage , George Maciunas , Jonas Mekas and other artists from the New York avant-garde scene. Until 1979 Conz lived in Asolo, then he settled in Verona . In 1987 he initiated a "Homage for Ezra Pound " together with 60 international poets in Meran at Brunnenburg Castle , the seat of the Pound family . Francesco Conz lived in Verona for a long time. He died there in April 2010.

Collection Conz

Conz had already started to create a collection and a photo archive in Asolo, which contained over 500 editions and documentations by artists. Works on paper by artists such as Decio Pignatari, Augusto and Heroldo de Campos, Eugen Gomringer , Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low, Henri Chopin, Bernhard Heidsieck, Isidore Isou and Mieko Shiomi form an archive for concrete poetry. Artist groups such as Gorgona, Once group and the Guerrilla Art Action Group by Jon Hendricks and Jean Toche are also represented in the collection.

Conz left some editions to the museums, such as the Queensland Museum in Brisbane (Australia) , the Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb , the Ciculo de Belles Artes in Madrid and the Museion in Bozen . In 2007 he made an exhibition in Verona about the PIANOFORTE LETTRISTI, a homage to the founder of the Lettrisme , Isidore Isou.

Honors

The Montfort University, London, awarded Francisco Conz an honorary doctorate in 1999 for his achievements in the field of art.

Art editions

  • Gerhard Rühm , Automatic Drawings , 1976/1985, Edition 50 + 5
  • Robert Watts , untitled (breasts in the box) , 1989, silicone object in wooden box, edition of 100
  • Thomas Bayrle , Kreuz-Madonna , 1988, serigraph on linen, size 200 × 146 cm
  • Hermann Nitsch , The Last Supper , 1983, serigraph on the original relic in black and red, 160 × 400 cm (Albertina Collection, Vienna)

Book editions

  • Daniel Spoerri, Francesco Conz, Bernhard Johannes Blume: Ten to twelve (and if you read them all correctly) brain recipes , 1987
  • Geoffrey Hendricks, From sea to sky: recasting the riace bronzes , 2005 ISBN 0-941422-01-1

Fonts

  • with Wayne Barewaldt: Francesco Conz Intermedia , Ram Pubns & Dist, 2001, ISBN 9780724278138
  • with Nicholas Zurbrugg, Nicholas Tsoutas: Fluxus! , Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 1990 ISBN 9780958864084

literature

  • Anne Kirker, Nicholas Zurbrugg: Francesco Conz: intermedia and the avant-garde , Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1997 ISBN 0-7242-7813-3

Exhibitions

  • 2006 Edizioni Francesco Conz , Canvases – Works on Cloth, 2006 Museion Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art, Bozen

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Conz, Francesco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian art collector and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Cittadella
DATE OF DEATH April 5, 2010
Place of death Verona