Piero Manzoni

An Italian artists born in13 July 1933, died 6 February 1963.
His artwork Artist’s Shit is too famous. In 2000 the Tate bought one of his tins for £22,350.

contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961

Piero Manzoni made his debut in 1956, in 1957 he painted the first Achromes: completely white canvases covered with rough gesso and imbued with glue and liquid kaolin.

In 1960 he marked with his thumbprint some hard-cooked eggs and offered them to the visitors, who were thus invited to “devour” art.

In 1961, in Rome, Manzoni certificated his first human beings with his signature in order to create Living Sculptures.

Artist’s Shit was made in the same year. He offered for sale at the then-current price of gold, ninety cans, each with a net weight of thirty grams.

The mystery remains while the contents of tins are still not revealed. Is it really his shite? Or not? Or does it matter?
What’s so clear is that Manzoni’s idea and his artwork was a great sensation to the art world and to people, and still is.

I think the most important facet of Manzoni’s artwork is his signature.
He wasn’t able to sell his faeces without his signature nor could he call it art if he didn’t sign onto a person’s body.
Surely it was his idea and concept which were more important than signature itself. So when I looked at him in the picure signing on a nude model, later he called it art, I had to think what he was saying to viewers by doing it.
I’m still confused to be honest whether he was merely taking a piss.
But what amuses me is that how famous his shit has became and its outrageous price. Because I feel that that is exactly what he was taking a piss about.
In the art world, or maybe it’s more correct to say ‘art market’, the product(art) quite often is sold by its fame rather than its pure artistic quality. Anyone knows a name ‘Picasso’ and without even seeing his painting we already know any of his paintings would cost a fourtune.

Artist’s Shit seems to me like an ironic challenge to the consumer society. He ran a process of packaging, labeling and selling. He made his new product out of shite. People would run for anything new or catchy today, even if it’s shite.

I find his Achrome painting came from a slightly different concept from his other radical artwork. He did seem to challenge the art world by making white coloured canvases, less to be recognized as traditional painting. But I think they’re beautiful and strongly aesthetic. It’s maybe because we’re already exposed to minimal art so that white canvase isn’t a shock.

Manzoni was influenced by Duchamp and Klein.
I think Wim Delvoe was influenced by Manzoni.