Born July 13th 1933, the Italian artist Piero Manzoni worked and lived out of Italy. Much of his work critiques the mass production and consumerism of Italian society following WWII. His conceptual projects, heavily influenced by Yves Klein, often questioned the artistic qualities and value of objects such as rabbit fur, breath, and even human excrement.

Pushing the limit of what is conceived as art as well as the price attached to such works, Manzoni created controversial thought provoking pieces. ‘Artist’s shit’ for example was originally priced at its weight in gold, with each piece being a total of $37, fluctuating with the price of gold. This parody of the art market commented on the waste and consumerism connected with the mainstream art world. As one of Manzoni’s most controversial works, ‘Artists Shit’ involved Manzoni canning his own excrement and selling the cans as conceptual works.

Piero Manzoni was not your generic artist. He abandoned traditional materials, more interested in finding ways to create provocative works, for the mind rather than the eye (paraphrased from the great Yves Klein). Another of Manzoni’s work that played on the inherent value of an object based on the artists name attached to the work was ‘Artist’s Breath’. Manzoni exhibited blue, white and red balloons atop wooden bases with the words ‘Piero Manzoni – Artist’s Breath” written on its surface. The theme of Manzoni’s obsession with questioning the nature of the artistic object continued through this work, while also acting as a mockery of the art-worlds obsession with permanence. The fact that the works original form was temporary plays on the age-old theme Memento-Mori, a theme found in most of my work created in this course so far.

Manzoni had a keen critical eye, constantly observing the world around him. I admire this quality greatly, and hope to create work that also manages to pose important and pointless questions, holding a mirror up to the ugly and beautiful world it inhabits. Even in Death Manzoni managed this, with a close friend of his signing his birth certificate as a work of art.