Everything about the contemporary is panda: Piero Manzoni 1961

by

Michal Martychowiec

 

Year

2016

 

Size

75 x 100 cm

 

Material

stone plate, recycled panda excrement

 

Price

on request

Everything about the contemporary is panda

Any objects like excrements, blood, bodily fluids have a stigma of a taboo and would be normally considered at the very least unattractive. But then relics of saints which are their physical remnants are another story. In 1961 Piero Manzoni created a work developed from the concept of the readymade and closely linked to these ideas - “The artist’s shit”. A tombstone for Manzoni’s idea memorising the date of its creation 1961 is being decorated with a bookmark (appearing like a talisman) hanging from what looks like a broken nail. The bookmark is made of recycled panda excrements (as it read on the packaging “made with real panda poo”) and was purchased in a souvenir shop among many other products being advertised to be made of the same material.