Artist's shit
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"Artist's shit" (Italian: "Merda d'artista") is a work of art by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni that was influenced by Marcel Duchamp's "Readymades".
In May 1961, Manzoni collected his own feces in 90 numbered cans, which contain 30 grams of feces each. He labelled them as "100% pure artist's shit" in Italian, English, French and German, and sold them for the price of their weight in gold. Their current estimated value stands at approximately EUR30,500 (US$25,000–35,000). On May 23, 2007, an exemplar has been sold for EUR124,000 at Sotheby's.[1]
Like Duchamp's readymades, "Artist's shit" questions the meaning of art as both cultural and consumer objects by inviting the viewer to confront a system that venerates cans of shit as works of art.[2]
[edit] Footnotes and citations
- ^ Sotheby's sells an exemplar for 124,000 euros
- ^ Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its Grossest National Product, ISBN 1-932-59521-X
