The $61,000 can of #&%!$

“Tate's tinned art leaves bad smell

By Catherine Milner in London
July 1 2002

Critics of modern art will at least applaud the symbolism. The Tate Gallery has paid £22,300 ($61,000) for a work that is, literally, a load of excrement.

The canned faeces of Piero Manzoni, one of Italy's most controversial artists, were bought by the gallery from a sale at Sotheby's.

Can 004 is one of an "edition" of 90 tins of merda d'artista created by Manzoni in 1961 as a statement on the art market. Each can contained 30 grams of his faeces and Manzoni sold it for the same price as if it were gold.

The price paid by the Tate for its merda - £745 per gram - exceeds, however, the £550 that the contents of the tin would cost if it were made of 24-carat gold.

"The Manzoni was a very important purchase for an extremely small amount of money: nobody can deny that," a spokeswoman for the gallery said. "He was an incredibly important international artist. What he was doing with this work was looking at a lot of issues that are pertinent to 20th-century art, like authorship and the production of art. It was a seminal work."

The purchase is not the only excreta the Tate has in its collection; it has also bought three paintings by Chris Ofili featuring elephant dung. Although the tin was bought some time ago, the gallery has kept secret the amount it paid. It put the can on display last year without making any public announcement.

Last week the gallery denied that it had tried to play down the purchase. "We buy 500 works a year so we can't talk about every one," the spokeswoman said.

Manzoni died, aged just 29, within two years of creating his tinned art. In a letter to a friend, he explained that his motivation was to expose the gullible nature of the art-buying public.

"I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their s--- in tins," he wrote. "If collectors really want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own s---. That is really his."

The cans were sealed according to industrial standards and then circulated to different museums around the world.

In addition to the Tate, the Pompidou Museum in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York have bought cans since. At least 45 of the original 90 cans have exploded, however. This is exactly what Manzoni intended. Soon after he created the cans he told a friend "I hope these cans explode in the vitrines of the collectors."

The Telegraph, London”

“A colleague with whom I worked some 30 years ago once predicted as much. Except her version was that it would be a theatrical production where the audience would pay to see somebody come out, drop drawers, and do it onstage.
What a crappy thread!”

“I am an artist.


Violin is an artist.


Bacpac is an artist.

Crazy mike is a moron, but if he weren't he'd be an artist.”

“Well ULTRA, looks like there's 61,000 smackers in it for ya! You know what to do! Let 'er rip!”

“This nice!

Comming from someone that should have the first name of Dick!

8)”

“hot”