KC Hill
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Craig Hill
Oracle of DelphiCan 004: Faeces as Art
October 2nd 2006 07:25
Sometimes I think art is silly. This doesn't help. Apparently The Tate Gallery has paid £22,300 of public money for the canned faeces of Piero Manzoni, one of Italy's most controversial artists, which was 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 an ironic 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 they were made of 24-carat gold.
The gallery has repeatedly defended its decision to spend taxpayers' money on the work. The money for the purchase came from the Tate's acquisitions budget, which it receives from the Government.
"The Manzoni was a very important purchase for an extremely small amount of money: nobody can deny that," said a spokesman for the gallery.
"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."
In a letter to a friend, the artist, who dies at the young age of 29, explained that his motivation for tinning his faeces was to expose the gullible nature of the art-buying public.
Very funny and true. Art connoisseurs are f#cking wankers.
'Can 004' is one of an "edition" of 90 tins of merda d'artista created by Manzoni in 1961 as an ironic 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 they were made of 24-carat gold.
The gallery has repeatedly defended its decision to spend taxpayers' money on the work. The money for the purchase came from the Tate's acquisitions budget, which it receives from the Government.
"The Manzoni was a very important purchase for an extremely small amount of money: nobody can deny that," said a spokesman for the gallery.
"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."
In a letter to a friend, the artist, who dies at the young age of 29, explained that his motivation for tinning his faeces was to expose the gullible nature of the art-buying public.
Very funny and true. Art connoisseurs are f#cking wankers.
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