Maurizio Cattelan-Artist

" I was a loser, most concerned with making a living. It took me 30 years to understand that if I was a failure it wasn't my fault. I had to reinvent a system, find a way out, and set some rules that could work for me and a few others. I guess in the end that's what we all are trying to do." -Maurizio Cattelan

"An inverted image of power and a statement about the seduction of authority."

 Frank and Jamie, 2002

Wax and clothes, life size figure

Jamie: 71 3/4 x 24 3/4 x 18 in. ( 182.2 x 62.9 x 45.7 cm )

Frank: 75 1/2 x 25 x 20 3/4 in. ( 191.8 x 63.5 x 52.7 cm)

Inv.#8077

 

"Maurizio Cattelan is the joker in a largely straight pack. For his first solo show in New York, the Italian artist literally made an ass of himself (the show consisted of a live donkey and a chandelier)- until, that is, a persistent braying alerted the city board of health to the animal's unfortunate habitat and brought an early end to the show. Like Beckett, Cattelan flirts with failure in order to create hopeless situations redeemed by comic absurdity. His visual theater has included a stuffed ostrich with its head planted in a concrete gallery floor, a suicidal squirrel slumped over a diminutive kitchen table, and a man with a vastly inflated head who loitered outside the Museum of Modern Art. The man's resemblance to Picasso made him the delight of photo-seeking tourists, as he played Mickey Mouse to the theme park of modernism." Via FindArticles

 

Wikipedia-Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan