Piero Manzoni

1933 - 1963

Born in Milano ().

[Piero Manzoni](http://www.pieromanzoni.org) (1933–1963, Italy) was a precocious painter and writer of manifestos, notably Per una pittura organica (‘Towards Organic Painting’) in 1957. Inspired by Klein and Fontana, Manzoni produces his first achrome (colourless painting) in 1957, underlining the purity of the material. From around 1960, when he exhibited with the Zero Group, his work focuses on the intellectual rather than the material. Manzoni produces certificates of authenticity declaring a person an authentic artwork, the artist’s breath caught in a balloon and his most legendary work, Merda d’artista (‘Artist’s Shit’): small metal cans containing 30 grams of his own excrement.

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