Currently on view: New York
Maurizio Cattelan: All
at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
4 November 2011 – 22 January 2012
Maurizio Cattelan “All” (2011) Installation view. Photo by M-KOS
On the pay-what-you-wish evening we visited Guggenheim Museum, a long queue of people coiled around the block before flocking in to see Maurizio Cattelan’s current retrospective “Allâ€. Precisely 128 works were hung from a ring at the top of the central rotunda, ranging from veristic wax figures, taxidermy animals, witty photographs, paintings and sculptures, spanning the breadth of Cattelan’s productions over the last 20 years. Instead of a predictably chronological order, the works were randomly placed, in an untidy but well mastered balancing act. The Italian artist literally turned the notion of a museum exhibition on its head, bypassing the use of the institution’s cloistered display areas to transform his retrospective into an expansive site-specific installation.
Cattelan has always been faithful to his reputation as a court jester, a provocateur throughout the length of his artistic career. Born to rebel out of his strict Catholic upbringing, Cattelan assiduously created works challenging the authority of countless institutions in employing a direct and satirical visual vocabulary. Now with his oeuvre all tied up in this web of strings for us to behold as one, it seems timely to ponder on some of his most confrontational works. Many pieces have famously affronted the establishments as much as the public, raising eyebrows in the best of scenarios and breaking outrage in the worst.
Maurizio Cattelan “All” (2011) Installation view. Photo by M-KOS
Such anecdotes are well documented, perhaps disputing those to “La Nona Ora [The Ninth Hour]” (1999), or “L.O.V.E.” (2010) as the most polemic. The former, an effigy of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite, met a mixed response between laughter and sarcasm at London’s Royal Academy collective exhibition Apocalypse in 2000. But this changed exponentially when the piece later travelled to ZachÄ™ta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland, the pope’s native country. The show caused such an altercation that the institution’s director was forced to resign. L.O.V.E. may well up the anti even higher, the marble hand sculpture defiantly erected in Piazza Affari right in front of Milan’s stock exchange. All the hand’s fingers have been expeditiously cut, except of course for the middle one, firmly pointing up to the sky. Approximately 15 meters tall, L.O.V.E. was first seen as part of Cattelan’s retrospectives at Palazzo Reale (2010) which he accepted on the condition of including a new public sculpture. After the unveiling, Cattelan proposed to donate the monumental middle finger to the city of Milan. Unsurprisingly, they declined the offer. Other anecdotes abound, such as with “Untitled†(2004) depicting three children hung in a noose around their neck from an oak branch in Milan’s Piazza XXIV Maggio. One Milanese is said to have urgently climbed up the tree and cut the rope off two of the wax figures with a handsaw before falling down and being rushed to hospital. These stories and more have become an integral part of the artist’s contribution to contemporary art.
Maurizio Cattelan “La Nona Ora” (1999) from “All” (2011) Installation view. Photo by M-KOS
Judging Cattelan only from his art would paint a very nihilistic character, but in numerous interviews he talks about the insecurities and fears that have triggered his creativity, as in his own words: ‘Fear of regret has always been my inspiration’. In other examples, a miniature Hitler statue entitled “Him†(2001) kneels down with clasped hands, looking up as if in prayer; the twelve inch self-portrait “Mini-me†(1999) peers down from a ledge in fear of falling down or being found; a life size baby elephant hiding in “Not Afraid of Love†(2000), beneath a white sheet, making him into an unconvincing ghost. The innate fears Cattelan shares with us are often presented in the guise of satirical, cynical and humorous accoutrements that tap into our collective consciousness, even if sometimes we are on the receiving end of his shtick.
Although some individual works have been de-contextualized in the process of this retrospective and this way be somewhat ripped of their important anecdotes, seeing all these works together in a state of suspension produces an overall impression that is full of ambiguity. An ambiguity that surely Cattelan welcomes into the show’s theatrics, as the puppet master pulling all the strings into a bigger, overarching thread to interconnect all his works, according a fresh experience to the viewer, with a dash of fun.
Maurizio Cattelan “All” (2011) Installation view. Photo by M-KOS
And here’s the twist in the plot: the 51 year-old Cattelan publicly announced his retirement from art making after the end of this retrospective. Even if Guggenheim Museum has already programmed a public event on the exhibition closing date to contemplate the end of his career, one should stay cautious of the news, as it could be just another joke or rebellious gesture. Will he rid the art world of “his own importance†by withdrawing all his contributions? This remains to be seen. In the meantime, we are told he will continue publishing “Toiletpaper†(a self-proclaimed ‘new generation’ magazine in collaboration with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari) so we know he won’t be completely out of circulation just yet.
Cover image of Toiletpaper, issue June 2010. Courtesy of Toiletpaper.
In the meantime, Catellan’s unprecedented display methods seem to have survived well within the space of the Guggenheim. Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece of architecture is notorious in over-isolating each individual art works as well as competing for the viewer’s attention. But the midair retrospective in exploded view took nothing less than centre-stage, leaving the museum’s spiral ramp to run around it and add bounce to what may metaphorically be a freeze-frame of Cattelan’s firework finale.
Maurizio Cattelan: All
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Avenue
(at 89th Street)
New York, NY 10128-0173
www.guggenheim.org/new-york