They are the ones!!
Tracey will have to work hard to beat this one though:
Tate Gallery buys canned crap
Arts Now
London - The Tate Gallery has paid £22,300 ($52,000) for 30 grams of the feces of Piero Manzoni, a 20th-century Italian concept artist.
Can 004 is one of a series of 90 cans, called merda d\'artista, that Manzoni created in 1961. Manzoni, who died in 1963 at age 29, said he canned his own excrement and sold it for the price of gold at the same weight as a statement on the art market.
In fact, the Tate paid about $1,700 per gram for the feces, more than a hundred times the going rate for gold.
However, a spokeswoman for the gallery told the London Telegraph that the Manzoni piece was a bargain at that price. She called Manzoni an incredibly important artist and his Can 004 \"a seminal work.\"
The Tate bought the work some time ago, but the price became public only last week.
The Pompidou Museum in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York also have samples of Manzoni\'s merda.
The cans should increase in value, too, as they are becoming more rare. At least 45 of the original 90 cans have exploded.
The irony would not be lost on Manzoni. In a letter to a friend explaining merda d\'artista, Manzoni said his motivation for canning and selling his own feces was to expose gullible art buyers.
\"I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints (he did, on hard-boiled eggs), or else stage a competition to see who can draw the longest line (his longest was 7.2 km) 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---,\" wrote Manzoni.
Tracey will have to work hard to beat this one though:
Tate Gallery buys canned crap
Arts Now
London - The Tate Gallery has paid £22,300 ($52,000) for 30 grams of the feces of Piero Manzoni, a 20th-century Italian concept artist.
Can 004 is one of a series of 90 cans, called merda d\'artista, that Manzoni created in 1961. Manzoni, who died in 1963 at age 29, said he canned his own excrement and sold it for the price of gold at the same weight as a statement on the art market.
In fact, the Tate paid about $1,700 per gram for the feces, more than a hundred times the going rate for gold.
However, a spokeswoman for the gallery told the London Telegraph that the Manzoni piece was a bargain at that price. She called Manzoni an incredibly important artist and his Can 004 \"a seminal work.\"
The Tate bought the work some time ago, but the price became public only last week.
The Pompidou Museum in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York also have samples of Manzoni\'s merda.
The cans should increase in value, too, as they are becoming more rare. At least 45 of the original 90 cans have exploded.
The irony would not be lost on Manzoni. In a letter to a friend explaining merda d\'artista, Manzoni said his motivation for canning and selling his own feces was to expose gullible art buyers.
\"I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints (he did, on hard-boiled eggs), or else stage a competition to see who can draw the longest line (his longest was 7.2 km) 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---,\" wrote Manzoni.
