During his short life, Piero Manzoni took the postwar development of European art to a point of extreme radicalization of the artistic process, helping to shift the issues from the mere creation of an artifact to the relationship between art and the artist’s body, between art and the public, between art and its economic value. Manzoni held that the artist had to aspire to eliminate any personal or distinctive experience from the production of the artwork, in favor of a total selfidentification of the work itself. Corpo d’aria (Body of Air) was produced between 1959 and 1960 in several copies, each consisting of a wooden box containing an articulated stand, a deflated balloon and a mouthpiece to inflate it. Also included was a set of instructions on how to complete the work, which was done by blowing up the balloon until it reached a maximum diameter of 80 cm, followed by placing it on the stand.