Should all your works, from La Nona Ora (1999) to America (2016), be viewed and interpreted in an absurdist context? Warhol, and in some ways Beuys as well, understood this perfectly: we can be revolutionary even without being ideological or signing a manifesto, otherwise we’re just making propaganda. I am always at risk of making a fool of myself because if no one reacts to the work then it would not work. When art makes us feel something and puts us in a position of discomfort, that’s when it has an impact. But you have to make something that speaks to people first.
So, I agree in the sense that the reaction determines success. Maurizio Cattelan's Ghosts (2021) perched above Perrotin's stand at Art Basel in Miami Beachĭo you think that, over time, you’ll be revered or reviled by art historians?ĭo you think it is true that, as Warhol said, “art is whatever you can get away with”?Īrt is a way of communicating thoughts, so I think a work is only successful when it speaks to your audience. My practice is based on communication, so in this way the digital era might help it thrive. Even controversy can be a tool, as long as the controversy is surrounding the reaction, and not the content, of the work. This has only been heightened in the pandemic. If no one is talking about it, it becomes uninteresting. We live in a society where people take in information at an unprecedented speed everything is talked about.
How do you think your irreverent art will be viewed in the post-pandemic period? We are surrounded by conversations based on immaterial structures, social values and hierarchies that we created, but usually we prefer to forget this it’s like being anaesthetised. I can’t say how people will react, but I hope these new works will break up the normal viewing habits and open a discussion on what really matters. I could play within the system, but with my rules. At art fairs, speed and business reign, so I saw it like this: if I had to be at a fair, I could sell a banana like others sell their paintings. To me, Comedian was not a joke it was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value. We live in a society where we are under constant surveillance, like being in The Truman Show up to the very end you don’t know if you're the subject or object of what’s going on.Īnd I titled them Ghosts maybe just because they appear to be overseeing us and we never know whether they are friends or foes, but also because as ghosts they live in a “suspended” dimension it’s never clear where exactly they are.ĭealer Emmanuel Perrotin checks himself out in Maurizio Cattelan's new sculpture, Nothing (2021) at Art Basel in Miami Beach.ĭo you think you’ll be able to top the viral sensation of Comedian? The pigeons are “observing” from above the movements of the visitors below, suggesting a different confine between inside and outside, what is seen and who is seeing. I am questioning the nature of how we display art, which is particularly important in the rigidity of an art fair. Why bring this flock of birds to Art Basel in Miami Beach? Your work on Perrotin’s stand is the latest in a long line of pigeon installations, from Turisti (Tourists) at the Venice Biennale in 1997 to the current intervention at the Pinault Collection in Paris ( Others, 2011). We asked Cattelan about his work on show this year at the fair-and how his art resonates in the age of Covid. Comedian was just a banana attached to the wall with grey duct tape-but the conceptually audacious, over-ripe readymade drew crowds and divided critics. But Cattelan surpassed himself with his 2019 showstopper at Art Basel in Miami Beach. His praying schoolboy Hitler ( Him, 2001), meteorite-struck Pope John Paul II ( La Nona Ora, 1999) and fully functioning 18-carat gold toilet ( America, 2016) have all garnered headlines. Since the early 1990s, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has been considered one of contemporary art’s most high-profile provocateurs.