Saturday stock report

Everybody wanted to know what was really in the 90 cans of artist’s shit (Merda d’artista) that Piero Manzoni soldered shut back in 1961 but it took artist Bernard Bazille to find out for sure. Or attempt to anyway. In the same spirit that spurred Robert Rauschenberg to erase a Willem de Kooning drawing in 1953, Bazille ripped off the top of one of the Manzoni cans (number 005 as it happens) to look inside. What he found appears to be another tin swathed in cotton wool. At that point Bazille lost his nerve so we still have to take Manzoni’s word for the can contents. 

As an update on our previous shit post about Manzoni, who priced his work at the same value per gram as the cost of gold at the time, the current cost of gold is $NZ1,604 and the most recent sale price for Manzoni’s Merda d’artista (May this year) is $NZ180,000. Sell gold, buy Manzoni
Image: Manzoni’s Merda d’artista apres Bernard Bazille