Piero Manzoni, 60 years of artist shit

In May 1961 Piero Manzoni (1933-1963) made ninety boxes of M'artista, Künstlerscheisse, Merde d'artiste, Artist's shit. It is a small metal box that represents the most irreverent work of art in history and that anticipates the very fortunate season of European conceptual art that Manzoni will not have the good fortune to live fully disappearing at the age of 30 in 1963. Now his '' shit '' will be celebrated by the Piero Manzoni Foundation which has organized various initiatives, which will run from May 2021 to May 2022, to celebrate and tell the story, legend and meanings of the box. From 1 May 2021 the new merdadartista.org site is online, which will be enriched over the months with new content, created ad hoc, including the series "30, 20, 10 minutes of Shit",meetings on the web with the protagonists of contemporary art to explore themes related to the artist's shit. Taplab wall covering with the "8PER / Homage to Artist's Shit by Piero Manzoni" has produced eight new wallpapers that will be presented until May 30 at the Casa degli Artisti in Milan. An agile book published by Carlo Cambi Editore is coming, in four languages, such as the label of Artist's Shit, which will accompany us through the essays of four authors (Luca Bochicchio, Flaminio Gualdoni, Rosalia Pasqualino di Marineo and Marco Senaldi) on a journey to discover the infamous box. Director Andrea Bettinetti (former author of the film Piero Manzoni, artist in 2013) is preparing short documentaries to explore specific themes,including for example the scandal of 1971, when the artist's shit was exhibited at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Rome and a parliamentary question ensued. A show for the theater is also in the works, with three short dialogues, written and directed by Filippo Soldi.

    In New York, the Houser and Wirth gallery celebrates the anniversary with a special issue of its Ursula magazine and with videos in which artists, curators and collectors describe the importance of the irreverent work both from a personal point of view and in the panorama of the history of art of the twentieth century.

    "The most trivial question, 'what's inside that box', continues to have fun because there is still no answer", says the collector Walter Baldi according to which "there will never be an answer", while the box increases in value: from the equivalent of 30 grams of gold when Manzoni produced the work, to 10 thousand grams of the precious metal: "The idea would shock the creator himself, that little genius".

    In reality, the artist's shit is the most sensational and final chapter in the career of Piero Manzoni, who was born in Soncino in 1933. Already in 1956 he had exhibited paintings with anthropomorphic shapes and imprints of objects at the "4th Fair market. Art exhibition contemporary "in Soncino and Milan. Just as in the neo-avant-garde spirit of the time he had signed posters with other artists and joined the Nuclear Art Movement. From 1957-1958 he realizes the first Achromes, which will return in later stages in his artistic career, in chalky matter, wrinkled or squared canvas. He exhibits with Bonalumi and Castellani and collaborates with artists from various European neo-avant-gardes. In 1959 he founded the Azimut gallery in Milan and the magazine "Azimuth" with Castellani.

    The gallery opens with its exhibition "Lines" and also Dadamaino, Yves Klein, Heinz Mack, Almir Mavignier will exhibit there. He then creates the series of Bodies of air (white balloons to be inflated) and Fiato d'artista (balloons inflated by him on a wooden base). In 1960 he went to Herning, where he experimented with unusual materials. He returns to Herning in 1961 and presents the Base of the World, an inverted pedestal to ideally support the Earth as a work of art. He participates in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad.

    He designs his own "monograph" with transparent pages with the publisher Petersen. On 6 February 1963 Piero Manzoni died of a heart attack.

    (HANDLE).