Comedians 2019 Banana, Powerful Tape Size variable
Family Dictionary 1989 silver-framed black-and-white photograph
Twentieth Century 1997 Horse specimen, leather harness, rope
Beep Be
Untitled 2021 Wall Painting Variable size
Untitled 2001 Platinum Silicone, Natural Hair, Fiberglass, Clothes
Untitled 2007 horse specimen
◎Houshang
Exhibition: Maurizio Cattelan: The Last Judgment
Duration: 2021.11.20-2022.2.20
Venue: UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Time back to the last Miami Beach Art Basel. A banana artwork created by Cattelan caught the attention of the entire exhibition hall, and soon it flowed into social media, once again causing explosive attention. Tracing back to the source of this viral spread, we will find that the Belhouden Gallery and the artists did not do anything particularly carefully planned, and they have no way of knowing the subsequent effects. Afterwards, Cattelan expressed his heartfelt doubts: it was so widely accepted that I was a little skeptical that it had departed from the environment in which it was created.
Today, we can see replicas, or derivatives, of this work in many channels, and the gray strong tape glued the Queen of England, the Water of Paris, and the donuts to a wall, a large breast, and a fruit plate, and The Behauden Gallery also specially opened a social account for this work. They are based on bananas glued to the wall by strong tape. On the day of the VIP preview, three buyers bought the artwork for $120,000 to $150,000, and all they received was a certificate of authenticity.
This artwork, called "The Comedian," naturally became the focus of the entire exhibition "Moregio Cattelan: The Last Judgment." Perhaps to highlight its existence, curator Francesco Bonamee placed Comedians on the west wall of the large exhibition hall. This banana is one of the few non-artefacts in the entire exhibition, one of the few plants, and the only rotten product, the only social media super symbol. Stretching eastward, cattelan's self-replicating world, the places where he lives, and his taxidermy friends. You might say that these works of art are too straight, yes, but there are a subtle differences here. Cattelan's "straight man" is not a result, it is extremely performative, his purpose is other, like a child disguised as an adult, but his appeal is a candy. We can't accuse the child of narcissism, instead we will satisfy him. And if we had to replenish it, we went into it, and we too became children, with Catlan's eyes acting as our guide.
Most of the artwork in the exhibition hall has been reduced, including 1/6 of the Sistine Chapel and 1/10 of Cattelan himself. Few people mention this, and everyone seems to agree that shrinking is a matter of needless reference. Who doesn't love cartoon characters? Cartoon is the best companion for people, perhaps the word companion can not describe the cartoon around people, it has both the comfort of pets and the friendship of real people. Perhaps more importantly, they are not just cartoons, they are cartoons that have been dismantled by contemporary art. The audience will come to the wall painting and take a picture with the cartoon Picasso, what is this cartoon Picasso? What is the difference between it and Pinocchio? Did it also become a comedian? Not far away, the museum chiseled a hole, and the small "Catlan" climbed straight up and came out sideways. This hidden thief's heart, Catran, was shocked by what he saw at this moment. Before it could appreciate it, it became a strange shape.
The smallest units of all these works of art are images, symbols, ideas, including the work on the shelf that pays homage to Lucio Fontana. Or rather, ethylene, resin, rubber, marble, silicone, pine, stainless steel, specimens, skeletons, neon lights, wall paintings make up these works of art, not acrylic, gouache, ink, ceramics. More importantly, almost all of the materials cattlan uses in daily life, which are necessarily different from the materials of the studio and the art scene. Simplified, Almost all of Cattelan's artwork comes from everyday scenes, such as elevator rooms, picture frames, beds, livestock pens, churches, eaves, supermarkets, prey racks, graves, and so on. That is, each work of art deprives away from reality a piece of the sky, a square, a roll of sound. In turn, Cattelan asked us to do the same. In the process of watching, we stumble upon a dog skeleton, which of course represents not only living beings, but also its affinity environment, that is, its part that is related to us: its symbol, its existence, its myth.
Bananas pocket cartoons
Face only your own clown
To date, Cattelan's artworks have never been far from the everyday, and Cattelan has either elevated the everyday to a certain extent or brought the everyday scene into the contemporary art scene. Cattelan's first artwork, the Family Dictionary, can be said to be completely everyday. The title of the work is most likely borrowed from Natalia Ginzberg's eponymous work. Wrapped in a silver frame, Carterland's naked bust faces us, his hands folded around his chest and painted a heart. Today, the significance of this artwork is self-evident, and he imitates the posture of a middle-class family and then subverts it again. It is worth noting that cattelan in the video is somewhat sad, and the heart he raises seems to be a forced, performed lie. Of course, it is unreasonable to limit it to Cattelan's satire of a certain situation. He is acting all of this to us, and all these critiques that can be simplified are just the links that bring us into it. After all, we cannot completely choose ourselves out of a certain situation, but this does not prevent us from understanding the sincerity, repression, pain, fear, mediocrity. Eventually, we'll be taken to a somewhat ridiculous, but panic-free scene.
As you learn more, you'll find that Cattelan is immersed in the role of a clown, and he's wandering and unscrupulous. In some ways, Cattelan is almost a clown. When this happens, the voice of criticism will appear. Looking at Cattelan's more than a hundred works to date, the clown image and the clown behavior are indeed its center. But Cattelan's Clown and Chaplin's Clown, or unlike the real clowns, Cattelan's clowns are mostly rooted in himself, not in the audience he faces. Come to think of it, is Cattelan's "mini self" really facing the audience? The answer is likely to be no. But Chaplin couldn't really turn his back on the audience. Cattelan stood high in the air, he sat still, looking at the distant ground, perhaps still very sad. In the process, the audience is excluded, but the image of the clown is established. Cattelan's Clown is the opposite of the angel in "Under the Berlin Sky", the angel sees the human world, and the clown can only see himself.
As previously said, Cattelan has a deep understanding of failure. In his early career, Cattelan was very sensitive to failure, but he could not get rid of it. In the late 1990s, Cattelan moved to New York, and the focus of his career shifted to New York. In New York, his first work on display was a work of art about failure. The rat family of three grinds their ears on the beach deckchair, and the more enjoyable the scene, the more the failure penetrates into the heart of the audience.
In 1997, during an exhibition in Dijon, France, Cattelan dug a hole the size of a human coffin. During World War II, the Nazis would force prisoners of war to dig graves for themselves, and Cattelan followed suit. Cattelan talks about death, but fails. Here, Cattelan offers us an extreme version of failure: failure is digging your own grave. Not only that, but Cattelan's appropriation of the Nazis also failed, and he even gave up self-performance for this, Cattelan himself did not appear, he had actually fallen into the void of the work. Cattelan once said: "Pull the boundaries a little farther, and you will realize how easy it is for the art world to absorb blows and absorb failures." It doesn't matter, that's part of the game. ”
Cattelan lived in the postmodernist era, the post-Warhol era, the post-media era, and the post-neoliberal era. He didn't need much of the old elite, but instead a freer and more systematic elite; he didn't need a complete approach to refinement, but instead a parallel structure of dialogue with the world; he didn't even need a studio, but instead an exposition, a museum, a scene of everyday life. Duchamp was a Dadaist, and his dress and demeanor may be strange, but he actually lived in the upper class. Cattelan may be the same, but more importantly, he is an ordinary artist. Almost all of his works have offense and humor similar to Duchamp's. Some critics have called it irony, but cateland's relationship with irony is not very harmonious.
Cattelan loves audiences, he loves contemporary art, he loves pop culture. His relationship with pop culture, contemporary art, mythological symbols can be described by a song: Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus (I love you, neither do I).
In 1993, Cattelan rented his booth at the Venice Biennale to an advertising agency, which was "Work is a Chore" that really became an advertisement in 2021. In 1999, Cattelan pinned gallery owner Massimo de Carlo to the wall with strong tape. That year he also did the "Sixth Caribbean Biennale", which of course was just an artistic event. As curator Nancy Spector says in the album of the same name for the retrospective "Moregio Cattelan: All," his goal was not to abolish the museum's status as an industry, but to create something unexpected, such as changing the definition of the exhibition and the artist's participation.
From 1989 to 2021, Cattelan completed the recording and critique of contemporary Italian society. In the post-Cold War era, Italy was full of wounds, and in the 1990s, a series of political crises, corruption incidents, and mafia forces encroached on the Italian system. In the past, right-wing parties led by Silvio Berlusconi have dominated Italian politics for a long time. On the economic front, the relevant data show that since 2000, the Italian economy has remained almost zero growth. In the field of cultural creativity, Italy is not prominent among the eu member states, which is in stark contrast to Italy's rich artistic tradition. In the 1960s and 1970s, when left- and right-wing activities were frequent in Italy, and Padua, where Cattelan lived, was also the center of extremist activity, a political tragedy occurred in the late 1970s, when the Prime Minister of the Christian Democratic Party, Aldo Moreau, was murdered by extremists, and terrorism came to the fore.
At the same time, left-wing and workers' forces supported and created a large number of media, and in such a withering and collapsing context, poor art took the lead in Italy, countering capitalism, rapidly decaying things, nihilistic history. The mind figure Michelangelo Pistoletto, who creates art in coal sacks, stones, and live animals, jokes about putting the beauty of the past with the disasters of the present.
Cattelan, a by-product of Italy's second half of the 20th century, was repressed, he didn't follow the rules, he fell into the mire. It was not until the end of the century that Cattelan found a solution in art, and perhaps his way of salvation, Italian criticism, which was embedded in Cattelan's artistic vein from the beginning. In 1989, Cattelan ran a political advertisement in the Newspaper Repubblica that read, "Voting is hard to come by/Please keep." Contrary to this, voters were indifferent and labor forces were ignored. Of course, Cattelan didn't pay out of his own pocket, and it was a rich girlfriend who supported him. And with a little attention, almost all of his most important works deal with Italian criticism, or political criticism, such as Twentieth Century in 1997, The Ninth Hour in 1999, Him in 2001, Untitled in 2004, L.O.V.E. in 2010, and Blind in 2021.
Berlusconi dominated Italy for more than thirty years by controlling culture and media, and Cattelan punctured it all. Above Comedians, we can see a horse suspended in mid-air, dying. The work, known as the Twentieth Century, is a metaphor for Italy, like a hanging horse, erratic, always living in the imagination of the world, often mired in the quagmire.
After the new century, Cattelan shifted to global criticism, and he has become a world master of art, not just a master of Italian art. 2001's "Him" and 2021's "Blind" are examples. We can know about "Him" through "No", and the biggest difference between the latter and the former is that it is a de-Hitlerized version. Afterwards, Catran recalls that creating 'Him' was painful, "The name conquered my memory, and he always lived in my head, even though it was still taboo." He is everywhere, wandering among the specters of history; yet he is unspeakable, irreproducible, wrapped in a blanket of silence. I don't want to offend anyone. I don't want to spark new conflicts or create some propaganda; I just want to make this image a negotiating territory or a test to put on our psyche. "Blind" in 2021 is an incomplete metaphor for us political hegemony, terrorism, and the epidemic crisis.
Italy was his salvation
From morgue to Vanity Fair
Rebellion has become the norm in contemporary art. Cattelan, on the other hand, has a deep undertone, and his adventure, rebellion, and humor are almost embellished. His background is that Cattelan is a print copyist, an image producer, and in the words we know and don't know, Cattelan is a media worker. He is a media worker first and an artist second. He engages in criticism with the intention of leading people to recognize the truth and to make people laugh. After all, the sound from language and images is the greatest shock of our time, it absorbs all the shocks that have plagued and sublimated us, and for this biggest shock, we are still helpless. Cattelan chose a conservative scheme to save this biggest shock. But we also know that we need to laugh more than ever.
To date, Cattelan has published and curated three magazines: "Eternal Food," "Charlie," and "Toilet Paper." Published at the end of the last century and now closed, The Food for Eternal Life is almost an image-only magazine that contains images mostly surreal, seductive, fashionable, and cult-like, and is often seen as an extension of Warhol's eclecticism. Charlie takes the form of Carterland's favorite catalog manual, systematically introducing the participants in the art scene, including those who have been neglected and snubbed. Toilet Paper, an optimized version of Food for Eternal Life, is more spectacle and more obsessed with desire, fear, and schizophrenia. Cattelan shelved the problem of visual proliferation, and his idea was to reconstruct the vision, free it from the system's imprisonment, and exaggerate it.
Born in 1960 in a poor family of five in padua, Italy, Cattelan spent most of his adult life dealing with the bottom, the downcast, the desolation, and disease. Cattelan received technical training early on and became a worker. When he was about 18 years old, Cattelan chose to run away from home, carrying only two plastic bags with him, containing limited underwear and socks, and rarely returned home. In order to make a living, Cattelan has been involved in various professions, such as cooks, gardeners, nurses, and carpenters. He also worked in morgues, almost his last job before he became an artist. "I was disposing of corpses in the morgue, real bodies, and they looked deaf and far away. Whenever people laugh at my work, I am always surprised: maybe the laughter in the face of death is spontaneous. Cattelan later recalled.
With his studies at night school, Cattelan gradually began his artistic career. According to him, he had met Michelangelo Pistreetto in the gallery, and at that moment, he had an epiphany to make art. The amount of low-level work he had previously done had clearly helped him a lot, and he had since continued this part of his exploration in his media practice. Cattelan's time in exhibitions and art productions dates back to the late 1980s, when he was a child, but soon rose to prominence, then settled in New York completely and has since moved on. It took him about 10 years to fulfill the promise he made when he first arrived, and he became a famous actor in Vanity Fair, a clown in the mouth of a famous corner.
In 2004, The Ballad of Trotsky, a previous version of Twentieth Century, sold for $2 million at a Sotheby's auction. This record is still the highest record for a single piece in Cattelan. In 2011, Cattelan's solo retrospective, "Moregio Cattelan: All", opened at the Guggenheim, bringing together 130 of his works, all of his work. In 2016, an art earthquake captured the world's attention, and Cattelan was once again brought to the forefront. Cattelan made an 18K sterling gold toilet for the Guggenheim under the title "America" The theft of this work at Blenheim Palace seems like a joke.
Prior to his visit to the UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Cattelan's work appeared in the "Image Supermarket" exhibition at the Red Brick Art Museum, and Catran himself curated the "Artist Here" exhibition at the Yuz Museum. Like the elephant in "Not Afraid of Love", Cattelan has long been a role to be reckoned with in the Chinese art scene.
Please start your show, Nameless Clown!
Photo courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art