Piero Manzoni’s upside-down pedestal Socle du Monde from 1961 situated its viewers on the underside of the earth, placing them in opposition to the ‘top of the world.’ Daniel Knorr’s Navel of the World revives Manzoni’s practice of signalizing a singular point, situating it within a political sphere. The ‘navel of the world’ is a popular term for the center of the earth. In many cultures, this point is set at the intersection of mystical coordinates. The act of piercing also has a complex history and appeared as early as 7000 B.C. It was used to distinguish between cultural backgrounds or class status. Since the 1990s, piercing has experienced a huge revival. It also represents a further development of the way the body is presented in public. Piercing ‘the most important point of the world’ is an act of humanizing the earth, shifting its meaning to the level of contemporary body consciousness.
