Piero Manzoni - Merda d'artista

Tin can, screen-printed paper and mylar foil. Numbered "30" on top of can.

Re-edition 2013, 9000 copies (100 x 90 copies).

Published by Skira for the Piero Manzoni Foundation, Milan.

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Piero Manzoni, Merda d’artista, authorized re-edition, 2013. Originally conceived in 1961, Merda d’artista is one of the most radical and iconic works of postwar conceptual art. By sealing and selling tins purportedly containing his own excrement, Manzoni directly confronted the commodification of art, the cult of the artist, and the arbitrary mechanisms of value in the art market.

This 2013 re-edition, produced in an edition of 9000 units under the authorization of the Manzoni Estate, preserves the original format and multilingual label while clearly existing as a later, didactic edition. Intended for exhibition, study, and circulation, it allows the work’s conceptual charge to endure without risking the fragile 1961 originals. More than an object, Merda d’artista remains a provocation—an artwork that collapses the boundaries between art, commodity, belief, and absurdity, and continues to question what it truly means to assign value to art.