Milan • Cattelan returns to Italy with a solo exhibition at HangarBicocca
He is everywhere: hanging on a wall, sitting on a ledge, emerging from a floor. On display also La Nona Ora, Others, Him
He is everywhere: hanging on a wall, sitting on a ledge, emerging from the floor. Maurizio Cattelan’s art is so iconic and egocentric that it can be summarized in any photo of the artist, even when the subject is another, a banana or a golden toilet. After the exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York in 2011, the one at the Monnaie in Paris in 2016 and at the Blenheim Palace of Oxfordshire in 2019, the Paduan artist has organized a triumphant return to Italy.
An art so iconic and egocentric that can be summarized in any photo of the artist
Curated by Roberta Tenconi and Vicente Todolí, the Pirelli HangarBicocca proposes from the 15th of July to the 20th of February 2022 “Breath Ghosts Blind,” an exhibition in which the artist exhibits a selection of his most emblematic works. The path unfolds between the hanging horse of Novecento (1997), the marble corpse-drapes of All (2007), the headless horse of Senza Titolo (2007), up to The Ninth Hour (1999), the controversial effigy of John Paul II struck by a meteorite, and Him (2001), the portrait of Hitler praying. On moldings that frame the rooms the pigeons of Others (2011) frame the numerous portraits of the artist, up to the unprecedented site specific project built between symbolic references and images that belong to the collective imagination.
In Cattelan we find the contemporary attitude for desecration and irreverence
But the mind immediately runs to Piazza Affari in Milan where L.O.V.E. stands out, the immense sculpture of a middle finger, an allegedly irreverent gesture to finance made by an art that follows the same speculative logic, where speculation means the subtle game of intelligence in which an idea is succeeded by a new idea, a new provocation by a new provocation. Cattelan inserts himself in that line that, from Dadaism to pop art, leads to the contemporary attitude of creating desecrating works that make of fun and irony their own reason.
He creates works that make of fun and irony their own reason
An art that conceives the idea leaving the the execution to specialists and the judgment to the auction houses; works that propose generic criticism of society, power and common sense. An art in which impression counts more than reflection.
Cattelan is everywhere, just as everywhere is the contemporary need to photograph ourselfs constantly. The image of Maurizio Cattelan is basically that of all of us, nourished by the icons and contradictions of our times, of which we all are the origin and the summary. A gigantic selfie taken to be published absent-mindedly on social networks and prove to the world we exist.
He conceives the idea, leaving the execution to specialists and the judgment to auction houses
Maurizio Cattelan
Breath Ghosts Blind Milano HangarBicocca
Curated by Roberta Tenconi e Vicente Todolí
15/07-20/02/22
