Edition Conz

by Dick Higgins

Tucked away in a side street among the pink marble buildings of Verona, a city in the mountains of the wine country of Northern Italy, is the Viccolo Quadrelli, where EDITION CONZ is located. No stream of secretaries goes in and out of the doors, no flow of street traffic. It is the ultimate in one-man operations, presided over by Francesco Conz, a courtly gentleman of the old school who looks and dresses like a cartoon of Edward Lear but who just happens to be the finest publisher of multiples in Italy. For him publishing is a form of art.

With Alan Kaprow, Encinitas (USA), 1993.

Trained as a business man, not as an artist, he served his apprenticeship working for the Duke of Windsor in the 1950s - hence his elegant style. In the early 1970s he was a manufacturer of fine reproductions of antique furniture at Cittadella, a manufacturing cit outside Conz's native Venice, living in nearby Asolo, a mountain town made famous by Robert an Elizabeth Browning and, later, the actress Eleanora Duse. His involvement in the antiques field gave him contacts with fine craftsmen throughout Italy. But his heart was not in it. Increasingly he was interested in the new arts, which he supported as a collector and then, in due course, as a publisher, particularly of work by the Fluxus artists (including myself) and of one of those groups of artists known as "The Vienna Group", this one consisting of Hermann Nitsch and Otto Mühl, who mixed improvisatory happenings with sex, blood and gore, Roman Catholic sensibility and Wagnerian grandure to make up a neo-Expressionist blend that made them, for a time, the darlings of the art media. Nitsch even rented an apartment downstairs from Conz's show room, and filled it with the blood-stained vestments from his version of Roman Catholic rituals, spilling out onto the stairs of the building.

With Geoff Hendricks, Verona, 90's.

But more serious artists also came. The Fluxus artists had made multiples since the beginnings of the group, usually produced in small, hand-made editions by George Maciunas, who had named the group and who was a brilliant designer. But by the 1970s, Maciunas was more involved in architecture than art, and in any case he became ill of cancer, dying in 1978. Thus increasingly the Fluxus artists chose to work with Conz, visiting him at Asolo; Nam June Paik built a harpsichord for him, Charlotte Moorman made an edtion with a cello, Geoffrey Hendricks made a myth box, Joe jones made an edition of his best-known piece, a self-playing violin in a bird cage (and actually moved to Asolo), and for Conz Alison Knowles created her Leone d'oro ("Golden Lion"), a silkscreen edition of prints using images based on the wrappers of Italian oranges.

With Alison Knowles in Asolo, 1975. © Mario Parolin

Art took up increasing amounts of Conz's time, and in 1979 Conz gave up the factory and moved to Verona, home town (in Roman days) of Cacullus, which was especially suitable for Conz's "Vienna Group." There he located his operations first in a building in the oldest part of the city, a bare stone's throw from a fifteenth century church, and later moved to his present quarters in the Viccolo Quadrelli, which he took over from another notable publisher, Sarenco, but that is another story.

With Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman, Performance "Koshugi's Chamber Music", Asolo, 1974. © Mario Parolin

In recent years Conz has produced a dozen or so editions a year - my own 1959/60 (a visual account of the beginnings of happenings), a spectacular series of large prints on muslin including works not only by the Fluxus articles but also, in recent time, by poets who produce visual art, such as France's Henri Chopin, Italy's Arrigo Lora Totino, or Austria's Gerhard Rühm, also a member in self-imposed exile, of another, earlier "Vienna Group." He has also produced memorable pieces in cast meta with the Nouveau réaliste Daniel Spoerri and ceramics by the Swedish sculptor Erik Dietman. Can leather or weaving be far behind?

With Daniel Spoerri, Seggiano, Toscana, (Italy) 1999. Restauration of the Spoerri's artwork "Rezeptbibliothek"

Conz's system is that "his" artists write him their proposals (with details) and, if he likes them, he replies (if not, he doesn't). They then schedule a time to come to Verona, and, when they come , they stay with Conz and work on their pieces with Conz's craftsmen. Since the Italian Lire is hard to convert, the artists are usually paid with a portion of the resulting edition, which they then sell through their regular galleries in their own countries or elsewhere. It is definitely not a system which would work for an artist at the beginning of his or her career, but it is one which is just fine for someone who already has some contacts and visibility.

With Robert Lax and Emmett Williams, Verona, 1995.

And so it goes. Con's work is superlatively fine (thus its high prices) and, one day, is sure to merit exhibitions of its own. His edition series is, in its own right, a sort of work of art and: sooner or later, the world is bound to recognize this.