The "comedian" who puts a banana on the wall,
Kainian shared with NOWNESS his busy "childbearing" situation
Using tape to paste bananas on the wall has become the most circle-breaking artwork in the past two years, which can be said to be known to everyone and everyone. Since the fire, the heat of related topics has not only not diminished, but also spread like a virus, and even the artist Maurizio Cattelan has not been able to take this "Comedian". At the end of last year, this banana came to Beijing, and then related exhibitions and various peripheral backpacks, DIY toys, and even cake desserts have become people's tireless punch objects, and photos continue to sweep the whole network.
Maurizio Cattelan, Image courtesy of the artist exclusively, Photo: Pierpaolo Ferrari
Over the past three decades, Cattelan's creations have been full of banter and absurdity, widely recognized and sought after by the industry and the world. Among them, the work "Him" was sold for about 111.8 million yuan, setting a record for the artist's highest personal auction. He can always bring hot topics and cause people to talk endlessly. In art, on the Internet, and in real life, traffic is increasingly determining everything.
Currently, the artist's first solo exhibition in China, "Moregio Cattelan: The Last Judgment," is on display at the UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, which will run until February 20.
Becoming famous has become a profession
"When I have a child in the future, I will name him or her 'internet'. Like everyone else, I buy toilet paper online, caviar and contact lenses. I also spend a lot of time online, and at one point, I even bought a cigarette butt that someone else smoked. ”
——Maurice Cattelan
Maurizio Cattelan, Comedians, 2019, Image courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Italian national treasure artist Cattelan exhibited as many as 29 works in his first solo exhibition in China, and the banana named "Comedian" was frequently praised by many people. Although the international art circle has been "unexpected" in recent years, Cattelan spent 30 cents to buy a few bananas in the supermarket, and sold for 120,000 and 150,000 US dollars at Art Basel in Miami Beach, which absolutely subverted everyone's imaginable category of "accidents".
Things no longer only follow the principle of "rare" as expensive, and "name" has become another wealth code.
Swipe to see more Maurizio Cattelan's banana
Image courtesy of ins: cattelanbanana, powered by @galerieperrotin
Since then, the fame and traffic brought by bananas has overshadowed everything for a while, and people are happy to equate Cattelan and bananas directly. Cattelan recalls the continued good or bad influencer effect of Comedians, reminiscent of the current pandemic that still lingers around the world, "We all hope that the epidemic will end after 2020, but two years later, it still exists like a 'comedian', they just become a virus that lives with us." We all want the outbreak to go away, but that's even more impractical than we believe bananas will last forever. ”
Whether a work can provoke more interaction and controversy may become more important than what the work of art itself is. In Cattelan's view, the spread of viruses in reality and the viral spread of explosive content on the Internet have many wonderful connections with each other. The quest for fame and power has never stopped since humanity was born and existed in this world, and these desires have not changed in the slightest on social media. Instead, the Internet has made them more visual and more impactful. Avoidance doesn't keep it from existing, and people learn to accept and embrace.
"People who are famous for 'being famous' are geniuses in my opinion!"
"I love instagram, it's a place where people can be famous for the sake of being famous. Becoming famous has become a profession. I can understand that someone who is famous for his achievements, and who is famous for being 'famous', is simply a genius in my opinion! "Such a genius, Cattelan must be among them.
This witty, humorous, outrageous Italian man never lacks attention and topics everywhere he goes. In 1998 he had Picasso untitled at the door of MoMA; a year later he smashed the pope to the ground with meteorites (La Nona Hora), and gallery owner Massimo De Carlo was taped by him (A Perfect Day) and pasted on the gallery wall for public display; in 2001, Hitler knelt down to all mankind under his "drive" to confess (Him). Ten years later, Cattelan erected an 11-meter-high middle finger (L.O.V.E.) in front of the Milan Stock Exchange.
Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled, 2021, Image courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled
I have to say that Cattelan is simply a perpetual motion machine that creates a topic. "I get up every morning, brush my teeth first, then suck on the floor, and when everything is done, I sit down and meditate for 10 minutes, thinking about how to make a good work. Then I went to clean the windows, and when the windows were clean, I sat down and meditated for another 15 minutes, thinking about the structure of the exhibition. Then I'll go and wash my clothes, clean the oven, clean the toilet, and sit for another 20 minutes. When night fell, everything began to take shape, and I could go to sleep. If all goes well, the next day I woke up and the next hot exhibition plan was out. When asked how to do it when he was asked how his works can always be very topical and explosive, Cattelan used a simple answer to express his profoundness and humor.
The process of "having a baby"
"Doing art is like having a baby... But sometimes they have three legs and an eye, and sometimes they are not only bald, but also have no eyebrows! ”
Maurizio Cattelan,Not Afraid of LOVE, La Monnaie de Paris, Paris, France, 2016
The image material comes from the documentary PAST PRESENT FUTURE, directed by Yuri Ancarani
View of the exhibition 'Libre !', in 2014 at Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, (France)
Cattelan's current topic of constant concern is the human response to fear—why people like to share fear and always feel it together. He always thought that his works that were considered playful were not at all as satirical as reality, and that creating comedies that would make fun of reality was a difficult challenge.
"Doing art is like having a baby. You go out and find a good partner, and if you can be together for a long time and continue this intimate relationship, you can often get pregnant and have a baby. Obviously, you want your child to be smart, beautiful, and successful. The same is true for my work, I work hard to produce profound, timeless, classic works, but sometimes they grow three legs and an eye, and sometimes they are not only bald, but also have no eyebrows! And it only happens once in a lifetime, and it will be almost perfect when it is born, but it has no name. ”
"PAST PRESENT FUTURE" documentary trailer, this time Italian director Yuri Ancarani filmed the first exhibition documentary for Maurizo Cattelan, showing the wonderful behind-the-scenes of the artist's "childbirth".
Exhibition Information:
Breath Ghosts Blind, Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milano, Italy, 2021
Not Afraid of LOVE, La Monnaie de Paris, Paris, France, 2016
Maurizio Cattelan, All, Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2011
A pleasant nightmare
In the process of deliberately creating joy, Cattelan also wants to show the core of the tragedy.
"My work is like a reef in the sea, you can stop in front of it and swim around it; you may also collide with it, and the ship will be destroyed."
Maurizio Cattelan, Mother, 1999
Cattelan was born in 1960 to a poor family in Padua, Italy, to a truck driver and a cleaner mother. He has been earning money to support his family since high school, working as a gardener, a washer, a carpenter, and struggling to make a living in the post office, morgue, and kitchen. His works are often mixed, many of which are related to the absence of childhood. "I want to have more control over how I feel and the way I work, but I'm often swayed by another self, and the creative process struggles tremendously." The good thing is that I found a weakness in my other self, and I poke him in the sore spot when I struggle. But because he was me too, it was a very painful process. ”
Maurizio Cattelan, San Zhang, 2021, Image courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Today, Cattelan is still obsessed with Disney animation and neorealist films. If you mix the two, he says, you can often make good works or have a pleasant nightmare. It is also the central embodiment of the coexistence of comedy and tragedy in Cattelan's artwork.
In this UCCA exhibition, many viewers also found a unique perspective: through the mouth of felix's cat skeleton, the horses of the twentieth century can be seen swallowed. In addition, the curators deliberately juxtapose Twentieth Century and Comedians, matching the heavy story of 20th-century Italian society with one of the lightest works of art of the 21st century, a fusion that accentuates Cattelan's artistic drama and provides the audience with a new and profound perspective.
Maurizio Cattelan,Breath Ghosts Blind, Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milano, Italy, 2021
Maurizio Cattelan, Breathe, 2021, Image courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Never get tired
"My only work habit is to stick to swimming so I can take a free shower. My shower head broke down 15 years ago and I haven't had time to fix it until now. ”
Maurizio Cattelan, "Beep Beep Beep
Squirrels collapsing on a sink table with dirty plates piled up, as if completely overwhelmed by the burden of life, is a scene from Cattelan's very classic work called "Beep Beep Also presented in this UCCA exhibition, the work perfectly condenses the daily life of an Italian low-income family and is a true portrayal of Cattelan's past. However, the reason why this work still resonates to this day is because this frustrated squirrel is almost like every one of us in the city who feels that we are about to be crushed by the burden of life.
Maurizio Cattelan, "Work is a Chore," 1993 2021, Image courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
As a child, Cattelan had a hard and sullen life, but since he became an artist by chance at the age of 30, he has become open-minded in many things. In 1993, Cattelan couldn't think of a creation, so he simply rented his booth to a working is a bad job. This work, which debuted at the Venice Biennale, "Work is a Chore", also came to the Chinese exhibition site this time. But the biggest sensation was in 2011, when Cattelan took advantage of the closure of his large retrospective exhibition "All" at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, to announce that he would stop all creation and stop appearing as an artist, shocking everyone.
Moregio Cattelan: The Last Judgment, Exhibition Scene, 2021, Photo courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
During this time, he and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari founded a semi-annual magazine without a word and the absurd aesthetic of pictures, "Toilet Paper". Five years after resigning, Cattelan finally ran to the Guggenheim Museum again, but this time it was not an exhibition hall but a toilet, and a pure gold toilet (America) that could really queue up to pull was installed, and a high-profile return.
Maurizio Cattelan, 《America》,2016
"Work became my faith"
"Some say that find something you really like and you will never get tired. It took me more than twenty years to figure it out. Until then, I had given up on myself and my life was in a mess. When I finally found it, work became my belief. Any belief, as long as you don't get caught up in the fire, can make you feel happy and delusional. ”
In recent years, Cattelan's approach to work has been as maverick as his work, and he doesn't even have the studio that the so-called artist comes standard with. In his opinion, everyone has their own way of doing things, and he does not think it is different whether there is no studio, whether there is a studio, or whether there are three or even hundreds of employees. This is not the key to the success of the creation. "As long as what you're doing is relevant to yourself and helps you understand yourself, that's enough," Cattelan adds.
Finally, on how to interpret this "final judgment." Cattelan replied, "If I put myself in the shoes of Feiyu Tian (Director of UCCA), I would say I love this exhibition too much!" Because the cost is not high, but the tickets sell well. But I'm not him, so the only thing I'll say is that it's a pleasure to work with the curator Francesco Bonami, and it's nice not to argue with him all the time. The UCCA team is terrible, they work so well that they don't need me and Bo Nani at all. If they continue to work like this, artists and curators will no longer be needed in the future. ”
Let's talk
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Image courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Written by Zhang Jingya
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