Since the early 1990s, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has been considered one of the most significant provocateurs in contemporary art. His latest works are on display at the Gagosian Gallery in London until May 24, while the Centre Pompidou-Metz, celebrating its 15th anniversary, is hosting a museum-wide exhibition titled Endless Sunday, featuring more than 400 works from the Centre Pompidou’s national collection and nearly 40 pieces by Cattelan.
This latter project, co-curated by Cattelan and Chiara Parisi, constructs a dynamic narrative that spans time and disciplines. Structured like an ABC, the exhibition draws from literature, cinema, and art history to challenge our assumptions about culture, freedom, and the politics of exhibition. The title Endless Sunday evokes rituals of rest, rebellion, and cultural reflection. Cattelan reimagines the paradoxes of Sunday through works ranging from historical objects to provocative installations. At the entrance, visitors are immediately confronted by L.O.V.E., a colossal sculpture of a middle finger, setting the tone for the kind of subversion so closely associated with the artist. His earlier works draw unexpected parallels between pieces such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Last Light and Meret Oppenheim’s Old Snake. Through the dialogue between contemporary and classic modern art, past and present, irony and sincerity, the Centre Pompidou-Metz reestablishes itself as a vital space for experimentation and thought.
Cattelan’s 2016 piece America, a fully functional toilet cast in 18-karat gold, was stolen last February from Blenheim Palace in England. The $6 million sculpture was broken up and allegedly sold in parts to a London jeweler. In March, the thieves were found guilty. Cattelan has yet to publicly comment on the incident, but in what feels like a deliberate response, he launched a solo exhibition in London titled Bones. On display at the Gagosian gallery, Bones consists of a series of 24-karat gold-plated panels riddled with bullet holes. The gallery describes the damaged surfaces as “metaphors for creation and destruction,” exploring the uneasy link between material wealth and the widespread presence of deadly weapons. “I’m not American—what can I say about another culture?” Cattelan added. “I observe and compare… but violence is part of every country. Every culture has its creeds, beliefs, and convictions, which differ, and those need to be understood and addressed.”
At the center of the gallery sits a striking marble boulder placed on a couch, evoking the bust of a bull. Balancing on the line between realism and surrealism, the mythic presence and unexpected placement of the work deliver a shock. Together, the golden panels and the marble sculpture reflect opposing forces: domestication and wildness, creation and destruction, wealth and vulnerability.
Now 63, Cattelan has made headlines in recent years with works that critique wealth, power, cultural norms, and the art world itself. At Art Basel Miami, for example, he taped a banana to a wall and—of course—called it art. That piece, Comedian, sold for $120,000 despite visitors repeatedly eating it during the event. Depending on whom you ask, it was either a mockery of the absurdities of the art market, a dubious stroke of genius, or a triumphant, Duchamp-style performance of the tragicomic existence of the modern artist.
Maurizio Cattelan is not a visual artist in the traditional sense—he is not focused on craftsmanship, nor is he a painter or sculptor. His specialty is imaginative provocation: the art of the conceptual joke.