"Since 1960 I have been selling the prints of my thumbs, both right and left. In 1959 I had thought of exhibiting living people (I had also thought about exhibiting dead people, encasing them in transparent plastic blocks): in '61 I began to sign people to exhibit them. For each of these works I also produced an authenticity. Also in January '61 I built the first 'magic base': any person or object placed on it, remained a work of art for as long as it stood there. I made a second one in Copenhagen. The earth rests on a third large iron base, located in a park in Herning (Denmark, 1962): it is the 'base of the world'. In May of '61 I produced and boxed 90 tins of 'artist's shit' (30 g each) preserved in their natural state (Made in Italy). In a previous project I intended to produce vials of 'artist's blood'". - Piero Manzoni