Piero Manzoni’s “Merda d’artista”. Psychoanalytic interpretations and side effects

Abstract

This paper focuses on the critical analysis of Merda d’artista (1961) by Piero Manzoni, underlining the problematic nature of psychoanalytic interpretations proposed by Nancy Spector, Jean-Pierre Criqui, Gerard Silk and others related to Freudian theories. Starting from the philosophical interests of the artist and his theoretical declarations, it proposes a reinterpretation of the famous Manzoni’s work in the perspective of that bond to the social and experiential dynamics that will characterize most of the conceptual researches of the late Sixties.