Self-portrait in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2009. Credit: Photo by Szilas via Wikipedia.
Maurizio Cattelan is a renowned contemporary Italian artist recognized for his satirical and provocative works. He challenges conventional ideas of art with humor and irony, using his creations to critique societal norms, politics, and religion.
Biography
Maurizio Cattelan (born September 21, 1960) is an Italian visual artist recognized for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations. His artistic practice also extends to curating and publishing. Cattelan’s satirical and irreverent approach has earned him a reputation as a prankster within the art world. Self-taught, he has exhibited in numerous international museums and biennials. Many of his most famous works were created while living at Viale Bligny 42 in Milan.
In 2011, the Guggenheim Museum in New York held a retrospective of his work. Some of his best-known pieces include America (a gold toilet), La Nona Ora (a sculpture of a pope struck by a meteor), and Comedian (a banana duct-taped to a wall).
Cattelan was born in Padua, Italy, and raised by working-class parents—his mother was a cleaning lady, and his father a truck driver. He began his creative journey in the early 1980s by designing wooden furniture in Forlì, Italy. Despite having no formal art education, Cattelan has said that organizing exhibitions and reading art catalogues became his form of education.
Between 1996 and 2007, Maurizio Cattelan worked with Dominique Gonzalez-Foster and Paola Manfrin on Permanent Food, a collage-based journal created from torn pages of other magazines. In 2002, Cattelan also co-launched Charley, a satirical journal on contemporary art.
In 2010, Cattelan, alongside photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari, founded Toiletpaper, a bi-annual magazine known for its surreal and bizarre images. Their collaboration also extended to public art and fashion spreads, such as the billboard on New York's High Line in 2012 and a fashion feature for New York magazine in 2014.
Style, Movement, and Subjects
Cattelan is a conceptual artist, closely aligned with the contemporary art movement. His style is bold and irreverent, often using sculptures and installations to explore themes of mortality, politics, and societal absurdities. Through satirical and subversive visuals, he pushes the boundaries of what art can express.
Humor and satire are fundamental elements in Maurizio Cattelan’s work, often leading to his reputation as a jester or prankster in the art world. Jonathan P. Binstock has described him as a "post-Duchampian artist and a smartass." Cattelan sees originality as an evolution, stating that it’s about the ability to build upon what has been created. His works frequently include subversive twists, like replacing humans with animals. One early piece, Lessico Familiare (1989), was a self-portrait framed in a heart shape over his bare chest.
In 1992, Cattelan founded the Oblomov Foundation, offering a grant to an artist willing to create nothing for a year. When no one applied, Cattelan used the funds for a vacation. He is well known for his use of taxidermy, as seen in works like Novecento (1997), featuring a drooping taxidermied horse, and Bidibidobidiboo (1996), showing a dead squirrel slumped at a table. By 1999, he began making life-sized wax effigies, with La Nona Ora depicting Pope John Paul II struck by a meteor.
Maurizio Cattelan’s artistic journey is rooted in 20th-century avant-garde, with a critical approach toward art and society. He reflects on the intersection of art and life, blending reality and fantasy. His works often evoke shock and surprise, reminiscent of media formats from the 1980s and 1990s, like A Perfect Day and Hollywood. Despite his avant-garde intentions, Cattelan's pieces, such as La Nona Ora and L.O.V.E., have integrated into the mainstream, highlighting the tension between rebellion and acceptance. His work often juxtaposes humor with deep reflections on death, love, and failure.
"La Nona Ora" (The Ninth Hour), 1999. Credit: Photo by Mark B. Schlemmer via Wikipedia.
Most Famous Works
- Working Is a Bad Job (1993): Leased exhibition space at the Venice Biennale to an advertising agency, which placed a billboard promoting a perfume.
- Errotin, le vrai Lapin (1995): Persuaded gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin to wear a pink rabbit costume at a gallery opening.
- Another Fucking Readymade (1996): Stole another artist’s exhibition in Amsterdam, presenting it as his own until forced to return it.
- Turisti (1997): Displayed taxidermied pigeons and fake droppings at the Venice Biennale.
- 1997 Dijon Consortium: Dug a coffin-shaped hole in the gallery floor.
- Mother (1999): Displayed a fakir buried under sand with clasped hands visible at the Venice Biennale.
- Untitled (2001): Created an installation at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, peeking from a floor hole beneath Dutch masterpieces.
- Him (2001): Sculpture of Adolf Hitler kneeling in prayer.
- Hollywood (2001): Built a Hollywood sign on a Sicilian landfill.
- La rivoluzione siamo noi (2000): Miniature Cattelan hanging from a clothing rack.
- Don't Forget to Call Your Mother (2000): Show invitation card photograph.
- Daddy, Daddy (2008): Pinocchio figure face down in a pool at the Guggenheim.
- L.O.V.E. (2011): Giant marble hand with middle finger raised, placed in front of the Italian stock exchange.
- Turisti (2011): 2,000 taxidermied pigeons at the Venice Biennale.
- America (2016): 18-karat gold toilet, later stolen from an exhibition.
- Comedian (2019): Banana duct-taped to a wall, sold at Art Basel.
- Blind (2021): 9/11 memorial with a black resin monolith intersected by a jetliner silhouette.
Artists Inspired by Cattelan
Artists such as Banksy and Damien Hirst may have been influenced by Cattelan's conceptual approach, focusing on provocative and politically charged works that challenge the viewer's perception of art and society.
Exhibitions, Art Market, and Museums
In 2011, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York hosted All, a major retrospective of Maurizio Cattelan's work, featuring 130 pieces from his career. During this time, Cattelan announced his early retirement. In 2016, his retrospective Not Afraid of Love was held at the Monnaie de Paris. Cattelan has participated in numerous prestigious biennials, including Manifesta 2 (1998), and the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
Cattelan has showcased his work in major exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale and a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. His art is highly valuable in the market, with "Comedian" becoming a viral sensation. His pieces continue to command high auction prices, solidifying his status in the art world.
In 2004, The Ballad of Trotsky, a taxidermy horse installation, sold for $2 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
Cattelan’s works are part of the collections of several major museums, including:
- The Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bergamo
- The Museum of Modern Art, Bologna
- MAXXI, Rome
- Castello di Rivoli, Turin
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
Recognition and Influence in Popular Culture
Maurizio Cattelan was a finalist for the Guggenheim's Hugo Boss Prize in 2000 and received an honorary degree in Sociology from the University of Trento, Italy. In 2004, he won the Arnold Bode Prize from Kunstverein Kassel, Germany, and was awarded a gold medal at the 15th Rome Quadriennale.
In 2009, Elio, the lead singer of Elio e le Storie Tese, impersonated Cattelan at a MAXXI ceremony in Rome, humorously accepting an award. In 2006, the mockumentary È morto Cattelan! Evviva Cattelan! was created by Marco Penso and Elena Del Drago, depicting his fictitious death. In 2014, a mannequin of Cattelan was hung in Piazza Santo Stefano in Milan with a provocative note. His artwork La Nona Ora was featured at the end of the intro sequence of Paolo Sorrentino's series The Young Pope, and Charlie Don't Surf inspired the Baustelle song Charlie fa surf.
Film
In 2017, the documentary Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, following his retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Directed by Maura Axelrod, it featured curator Massimiliano Gioni standing in for Cattelan, providing an in-depth look at the artist's career and provocative style.
Television
Cattelan was profiled on the American television show 60 Minutes in 2011 during his Guggenheim retrospective. In 2016, the BBC aired The Art World's Prankster: Maurizio Cattelan, a documentary exploring his life and art.
Controversies
Cattelan has sparked numerous controversies, including a 2010 depiction by Sicilian artist Giuseppe Veneziano, showing him hanging in effigy at the Vatican. In 2017, when the Trump White House requested Van Gogh’s Landscape with Snow, the Guggenheim’s curator offered Cattelan’s golden toilet sculpture, America, instead.
In 2019, his infamous piece Comedian—a banana duct-taped to a wall—sold for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami Beach, only for the banana to be eaten by performance artist David Datuna. In 2023, a similar incident occurred when a student ate another version of the banana at the Leeum Museum in Seoul. Cattelan also faced a copyright lawsuit over similarities between Comedian and a previous work by Joe Morford titled Banana & Orange. The case was dismissed in June 2023.
Lesser-Known Facts
Cattelan once stole another artist’s show as a prank in 1996. He has also "retired" multiple times, including after his Guggenheim retrospective in 2011. His gold toilet installation "America" was infamously stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019 and remains missing.
Maurizio Cattelan is a pioneering figure in contemporary art, known for his thought-provoking works that blur the line between art and commentary. His influence extends beyond his creations, inspiring a new generation of artists to challenge societal norms through humor and critique.
Selena Mattei
