Maurizio Cattelan is often described as a Shakespearian fool, expressing universal truths about themes such as power, death and authority through what appear to be jokes or stunts: a stuffed squirrel that has shot itself at the kitchen table, Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite, a child like Hitler praying on his knees. His work tries to subvert and challenge contemporary thinking, blurring the distinction between art and reality to provoke reaction. Cattelan likes to describe himself as an idiot. He refuses to take a stance, and claims that he doesn't know what his work means.
Cattelan is the ultimate professional unprofessional: he is unconcerned to demonstrate a mastery of his craft, except the twin crafts of directing fabricators to realize his ideas and eliciting support from curators and collaborators. His work, a series of sculptural vignettes or gestures, expresses not a poetics of mastery, but a comedy of failure. If laughter can be said to express the whole of wisdom, Cattelan's body of work tends to confirm this.
This piece includes a number of photographs of Cattelan's work, a documentary about him and a slide show with additional photographs of his work.
Cattelan is the ultimate professional unprofessional: he is unconcerned to demonstrate a mastery of his craft, except the twin crafts of directing fabricators to realize his ideas and eliciting support from curators and collaborators. His work, a series of sculptural vignettes or gestures, expresses not a poetics of mastery, but a comedy of failure. If laughter can be said to express the whole of wisdom, Cattelan's body of work tends to confirm this.
This piece includes a number of photographs of Cattelan's work, a documentary about him and a slide show with additional photographs of his work.
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