Why did an Italian artist sell 90 cans of his own excrement in 1961?
In short: Piero Manzoni was a master of irony who challenged the nature of art itself. By pricing his infamous canned works based on the fluctuating market value of gold, he created a biting critique of consumerism and the art world's obsession with permanence, leaving an enigma that collectors still debate today.
Piero Manzoni, born in 1933, was an Italian avant-garde artist whose brief but radical career anticipated the rise of Conceptual Art. Influenced by figures like Yves Klein, Marcel Duchamp, and Lucio Fontana, Manzoni sought to strip art of its traditional materials. His 'Achrome' series, begun in 1957, featured colourless canvases treated with kaolin, plaster, or even rabbit fur, rejecting the gestural trends of his time to focus on the object itself.
His work often functioned as a satirical response to Italy's post-war economic miracle and the rise of mass production. In 1960, he staged 'Consumption of Art by the Art-Devouring Public,' where he thumbprinted hard-boiled eggs and served them to the audience. Similarly, his 'Artist's Breath' series—balloons inflated by the artist—parodied the art market's fixation on permanence, serving as a poignant memento mori. Manzoni even turned people into art, designating individuals like Umberto Eco as authentic works.
The most famous of his provocations, 'Artist's Shit' (1961), consisted of 90 sealed 30-gram cans. Originally priced at the value of gold, these tins have since sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds at auction. The contents remain a mystery; opening a tin would destroy its status as an artwork. Whether the cans contain human waste or merely plaster, they remain a powerful, enduring critique of the waste generated by modern consumer culture.
Manzoni died of a myocardial infarction in his Milan studio on February 6, 1963, at age 29. His influence, however, was profound, directly shaping the Arte Povera movement. His contemporary Ben Vautier famously signed Manzoni's death certificate, declaring the document itself a work of art, a final nod to Manzoni's lifelong effort to blur the lines between life, death, and the art object.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Piero Manzoni
- Also: Achrome
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