There are those who consider him one of the geniuses of contemporary art and those who consider him only a provocateur. But the attempts of some critics to cut short the art market, which today considers Maurizio Cattelan one of the most quoted Italian artists in the world, able to compete with the most famous international artists, has no answer.
In fact, his works stand out between Milan and New York, Venice and Amsterdam, London and Vienna, from the “Ninth Hour” (1999, beaten by Christie’s for $886,000), which shows Pope Wojtyla hit (and sunk) by a meteorite, to “Him” (2001), a Hitler transformed into a helpless child who prays on his knees with swollen eyes and languid (beaten all’auction at Christie’s for almost eighteen million dollars), from the three mannequins of children hanging from a tree (2004) near Porta Ticinese in Milan – and immediately removed, even if the then mayor of the city defended the work, underlining its provocative value – to “L.O.V.E.” (2010), an open hand without his fingers, with the exception of the middle hand, always in Milan, in front of Piazza Affari, for some gesture of protest against the world of finance (but, looking carefully, the finger is facing the city … Will it mean something?), to the numerous installations in which animals are the protagonist. After the animals, Cattelan also targeted himself: here he is, now on a coat rack with a felt dress by the famous German artist Joseph Beuys, now very small and perched on top of a bookstore, now with his face multiplied in many masks that he calls “Spermin” and every time his works arouse a heated debate in the world of art as well as in that of public opinion.
“The world was not created once, but every time an original artist came into being.” Marcel Proust was convinced of this, but listening to the story of Maurizio Cattelan’s life, one wonders how much destiny counts – together with talent and tenacity – so that those who are able to create new worlds can also make them known. Born in Padua in 1960 in a family that was not well off, where art was not even talked about, Cattelan began to work from a young age in order to be independent and move away from the family, until he resigned from his last job and promises never to work for anyone again. After having started to have an interest in art and to look at it with curiosity, thanks to an exhibition by Michelangelo Pistoletto, Cattelan has a sort of revelation: to become an artist and, moving to Forlì, almost out of pure necessity to occupy time, he begins to manufacture objects and furniture with strange shapes, handmade, following the trends of Conceptual Art.
He settled in Milan, which at the end of the eighties presented itself as the capital of design, creative and vital, but above all prepared to take seriously even the most extravagant things, began his career as a designer, not in prestigious schools and academies, but as self-taught. This is the moment when he is invited to participate in the first group exhibitions that, within a few years, bring Cattelan in the circuit of art, but, however, has never fully accepted it because, as Francesco Bonami says in his book “Autobiografia non autorizzato” (2011), “The artist has never really been baptized by militant critics, but considered a “sinner”. In 1992 Cattelan landed in New York. Eighteen years after his first failed exhibition in the Big Apple (a large crystal chandelier and a living donkey in Daniel Newburg’s young gallery), the same city would have celebrated him in one of the temples of modern art, the Guggenheim, in a grand retrospective entitled “All” and where he would have installed “America”, an 18-carat gold toilet that, in addition to being admired, can be used by the visitor “when nature calls”. However, just before the definitive world consecration, Cattelan announced his retirement from the scene. Media strategy?
What about Cattelan, who presented himself at the ceremony to withdraw the title of Honorary Professor conferred by the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara with an inscription on his forehead that promoted the new smartphone model of Huawei? He rented that part of his body as advertising space and donated the proceeds to charity (because we’re all on sale, it depends on what we do with what we’ve earned). Or the interview for Flash Art “recycling” the answers of other artists? Or the “Sixth Biennial” organized in the Caribbean during which his work consisted of two weeks of free vacation for invited artists and no work on display, leaving openmouthed the delegations of critics who came unnecessarily? And we could cite many other episodes to demonstrate how ironic, irreverent and maybe even a bit “ruthless” our Artist is. Whether it’s a real protest or a provocation, over the years Cattelan has always tried to say something in his own way, to wake most people from the torpor in which they live, inviting them to react in some way. His works, which it is useless to want to attribute at all costs to a current or group, which amaze, intrigue, scandalize, almost always leave you speechless and arouse emotions.
Cattelan is guided by the principle that “The real challenge for an artist is that his work will survive in time. In a world so overcrowded with fast, easy-to-consume images, the work of artists is increasingly about the power of the images they produce: if they work, they can last for centuries. So it’s no wonder that someone like him is on social media, particularly Instagram, but of course in his own way. He’s been making up The Single Post Instagram since last March. Is this a web installation? A work of art? A simple divertissement, his umpteenth provocation or all this together? It’s hard to say, he’ll never explain it, because those photos that he puts one at a time and then delete a few days later take care of talking. There is always an ironic phrase to accompany her and the many comments of her followers, but he – ça va sans dire – does not follow anyone. The creator, among other things, of “Toilet Paper” (the magazine founded in 2010 together with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari with provocative images and a strong ironic charge to tell the story of art, fashion and society), posts, writes and involves, but “in time” and so ends up with the curiosity even more, remembering (or perhaps not?) how ephemeral all this is, starting with the world in which we live.
During these months, a picture with a Hillary Clinton holding a doughnut with a hole much bigger than usual was one of the most loved and commented photos, like the one in which a man skates by putting his feet on two plates of spaghetti. “Make love like war”, he wrote under one, which he deleted shortly after; “Imagination rules the world”, he remembered in another. And if he says so, there’s nothing to believe about it.
by Angela Natrone