Artist Maurizio Cattelan will be the first to tell you that he has not mastered the craft. He is not a painter or sculptor. His specialty is creative provocation, the art of conceptual jokes. For example, in La Nona Ora, Pope John II. A life-size, hyper-realistic statue of John Paul was struck down by a meteor, his eyes closed in eternal sleep. a child-sized model of Hitler kneeling in prayer called O, or a specially commissioned statue of a woman named Betsy nestled in a full-size refrigerator.
Relating to: Don’t make fun of the $120,000 banana – it’s in on the joke too | Jonathan Jones
The 63-year-old Italian has made mainstream headlines in recent years with his writings berating wealth, power, cultural degradation and the art-world hot air, among other targets. In 2016, he installed a functional solid gold toilet at the Guggenheim and named it America. (This work was later stolen from Blenheim Palace and presumably melted down.) Worse, at Art Basel in Miami, he taped a banana to the wall and called it art. Entitled The Comedian, it sold for $120,000 (and was devoured by audiences, subsequently altered many times) – an easily mocked symbol of the absurdities of the art market, a work of questionable genius, or a triumphant, Duchamp-esque performance by the modern artist. tragicomic existence depends on who you ask.
Who’s in on the joke? Over the years, given Cattelan’s status as a semi-retired prankster and his disdain for the art market, not commercial galleries. But Cattelan, who splits his time between New York and Milan, returns to Chelsea on Sunday for his first solo gallery show in more than two decades and his first with Gagosian. “I call Gagosian the dark side of the market,” Cattelan said with a laugh before landing via Zoom recently: “I hesitated for a very, very long time, but it was a good partnership.”
The show, which runs until June 15, has a more self-consciously serious bent than the banana split – more in line with the golden toilet America (2016), which is available to visitors and is a commentary on “wealth, nationalism and violence.” Experiments with lead-filled depictions of national flags emerged. Market (2024), one of two pieces in the exhibition, adorns one wall of the cavernous gallery with 24-carat plated steel panels marked by the fire of more than 20,000 ammunition rounds (and sells for $375,000 a piece, according to Artnet). Evoking war zones as well as gilded moon craters, the panels continue the artist’s long-standing fascination with gold. “I call it a fatal attraction, because it’s true,” Cattelan said of material that immediately sinks in and makes sense. “Gold is calling you and there’s no way [to resist] – the reflection of gold is magnetic. Rude but charming.”
And it’s beautiful, at odds with the geography of violence from an array of automatic and semi-automatic weapons – dents, craters, scars, lacerations, clean shots that resemble hole punches. “I love doing shootouts,” Cattelan said. “It should be attractive and disturbing at the same time.” He had long dreamed of a performance art piece in which audiences would witness guns being fired at them through bulletproof glass. Since this isn’t exactly gallery or obligation material, the artist decided to split the “experience with the outcome.” The 64 panels, each just over 4ft x 4ft and 3mm thick, were shot under supervision – one might say decorated – in a handful of shooting sessions by licensed professionals at a “state-of-the-art” gun range outside New York, with senior director Gagosian and fellow artist Andy Avini.
“Maurizio knows what he wants. He has a vision and he sticks to it,” said Avini. When he was given the concept, Avini embarked on a months-long journey to overcome logistical and legal hurdles. “There had to be adjustments, the law had to be followed. He gave me the basics, and the Hollywood armorers too Despite America’s generally lax gun laws, you can’t just shoot a gun at steel panels in New York.
But shots were still fired, an inherently violent tool was beaten into fine art, and attention was drawn to gun regulation in the US. “This work is easy because it’s produced in the states, unlike in Europe,” Cattelan said, provoking a mixture of fear and perverse fascination. (Also a legal letter from British artist Anthony James accusing Cattelan of plagiarizing his Bullet Painting; both the artist and Avini deny the accusation as unfounded. “I will not address this matter other than to say that this allegation is unfounded and important,” Cattelan said.)
On Sunday, it is offset by November (2024), a male statue made of Carrara marble; His late friend and business partner, Lucio Zotti, died last September while resting on a bench, his genitals casually exposed, and urinating on the ground. . Cattelan calls the work a “fountain”, referencing the long legacy of classical nude water art in Rome and, in particular, Mannekan Pis (1619), a sculpture of a young boy urinating. But there is no drainage of the work; November’s water fountain is currently pooling on the ground.
Cattelan describes the work as a “monument to marginality”: making visible and beautiful the things you cannot or cannot see. The official interpretation is a little sharper; The press release states that Sunday “precious metal was used to disrupt the country’s relationship with the accessibility of guns (a situation in which no defense against privilege is possible)” and quotes exhibition curator Francesco Bonami: “If you are free to buy an assault rifle, one “What’s wrong with urinating in public, in the store?”
Cattelan is more cautious in conversation. “We talk about gun control in the press release, but it’s more about violence in general, and violence belongs to everyone,” he said. “Violence can be produced by any means. “It may even be psychological.”
“I’m not American, so what can I say about another culture?” added. “I watch and compare… but it’s part of every country. Every culture has different beliefs, beliefs, and beliefs, and these need to be understood and then addressed.
On a recent visit to Gagosyan, spectators walked up and down the polished, scarred wall and silently observed November; The air of curiosity seemed to prevail over provocation. But who can say which punchline will emerge over time? And whether that’s a joke, a gut punch, neither, or both. “According to me [Cattelan]“Once it’s on the wall, the job isn’t necessarily done,” Avini said. “This goes on all the time, and it’s people’s reactions that keep it going.”