{"id":3978,"date":"2011-02-27T19:35:01","date_gmt":"2011-02-27T19:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/monochromist.com\/2011\/02\/27\/hyperallergic-piero-manzoni-merda-dartista\/"},"modified":"2017-07-10T04:27:46","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T04:27:46","slug":"hyperallergic-piero-manzoni-merda-dartista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2011\/02\/27\/hyperallergic-piero-manzoni-merda-dartista\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n

hyperallergic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Piero Manzoni, \u201cMerda d\u2019Artista\u201d (1961) <\/p>\n

From Tate, Etc<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Merda d\u2019artista<\/em> is an edition of 90 signed and numbered works that Manzoni said he made from his own excrement. Each is a 30-gram can of shit, measuring 4.8×6.5cm, \u201cfreshly preserved, produced and tinned\u201d, as stated on the label. This information appears in Italian, French, German and English, against a background pattern produced by repeating the artist\u2019s name in block letters. Because Manzoni sold each can by weight at gold\u2019s daily market price, the shit literally became worth its weight in gold. In retrospect, this has proved to be a bargain. At $35.20 (\u00a318.07) per ounce – the price at which the London Gold Pool (an international consortium of central banks) wanted to fix the precious metal – a tin originally would have cost about $37. That was 1961. Thirty years later, Sotheby\u2019s auctioned one for $67,000. Then, the price of gold had climbed to $374 per ounce. If Manzoni\u2019s initial pricing scheme still held, it should have cost only $395.77. In other words, in 1991 Merda d\u2019artista had outperformed gold in price by more than 70 times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Supposedly, he made this work in response to a taunt from his father: \u201cYour work is shit.\u201d Since his father ran a factory that produced canned meats, Manzoni, in effect, paid him back in kind. Thus, what distinguishes Merda d\u2019artista from the whoopee cushion is, not surprisingly, discourse. It is a gesture, not an industrial product – even if it presents itself otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently the shit is not literally shit but just figuratively: it\u2019s been revealed<\/a> that the cans contain plaster, not excrement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

hyperallergic: Piero Manzoni, \u201cMerda d\u2019Artista\u201d (1961) From Tate, Etc: Merda d\u2019artista is an edition of 90 signed and numbered works that Manzoni said he made from his own excrement. Each is a 30-gram can of shit, measuring 4.8×6.5cm, \u201cfreshly preserved, produced and tinned\u201d, as stated on the label. This information appears in Italian, French, German […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-video_graphics","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5sGHy-12a","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2357,"url":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2012\/06\/23\/thekhooll-commuting-1961-salesman-mike\/","url_meta":{"origin":3978,"position":0},"title":"thekhooll: Commuting - 1961 Salesman\u2026","author":"monochromist","date":"June 23, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"thekhooll: Commuting - 1961 Salesman Mike Dreschler has his motorised roller skates refuelled at a petrol station near Hartford, Connecticut. 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