Maurizio Cattelan: All. Maurizio Cattelan

      Daddy, Daddy, 2008

      PREFACE

      At once seductive and disturbing, exuberant and sorrowful, Maurizio Cattelan’s multifaceted practice chronicles the follies and paradoxes of contemporary society and the individual’s struggle to find a place within it. Delighting in the subversion of artistic and cultural norms, his works infiltrate the viewer’s consciousness with startling imagery and enigmatic narratives. Despite his trademark persona of the hapless antihero and engagement with the themes of failure and despair, Cattelan has created a body of work over the past twenty-five years that has established him as one of the most eloquent and distinctive voices in contemporary art.

      The Guggenheim’s commitment to Cattelan’s work was formalized over a decade ago with the acquisition of La Rivoluzione siamo noi (2000), a diminutive rendering of the artist dangling from a clothes rack, which is featured in this exhibition. Our relationship with the artist was extended in the group show theanyspacewhatever (2008–09), for which Cattelan engaged the unique spatial dynamics of Frank Lloyd Wright’s building by conceiving a work for the fountain on the rotunda floor. Daddy, Daddy (2008), a depiction of the Disney character Pinocchio floating facedown in the pool as if the victim of a tragic tumble from the ramps above, was a memorable exercise in site-specificity. Three years later, the museum’s dramatic potential has again inspired a bold intervention by the artist. In a radical conceptual gesture, Maurizio Cattelan: All takes the form of a riotous cluster of work hanging in the central space of the rotunda, presenting his entire oeuvre in a moment of disorienting suspended animation. Encompassing sculptures, installations, photographs, paintings, and works on paper that date from the late 1980s to the present, the exhibition is the first comprehensive overview of Cattelan’s production. A culmination of his infamous attempts to evade professional obligations and confound public expectations, Cattelan’s installation defies the ordered hierarchies and conventional viewing conditions of the solo retrospective and will, for the duration of the exhibition, constitute an overarching artwork.

      Our sincere gratitude is due to a group of patrons, spearheaded by Danielle and David Ganek, who comprise the exhibition’s Leadership Committee. As of this catalogue’s printing, the founding members of the committee include the Steven A. and Alexandra M. Cohen Foundation; Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann; Massimo De Carlo; Judie and Howard Ganek; Marian Goodman; The Mugrabi Collection; Gael Neeson and Stefan Edlis; Galerie Perrotin; Amy and John Phelan; Samantha and Aby Rosen; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Beth Swofford; Lisa and Steven Tananbaum; David Teiger; and those who wish to remain anonymous. The committee has also benefitted from the largesse of other members and supporters, listed before the preface. We could not have realized a project of this scope without their support of the museum as well as their long-standing commitment to the artist’s work. Special thanks are also due to Cattelan’s three primary galleries: Massimo De Carlo, Milan; Galerie Perrotin, Paris; and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, for their generous and essential support.

      Every major survey exhibition depends on the generosity of public and private lenders, but in the case of this unconventional installation, we must especially commend the individuals and institutions, listed in the Lenders section of this book, who have lent cherished works from their collections and enthusiastically supported the artist’s wishes for their display.

      Equally, this ambitious undertaking could not have occurred without the exceptional leadership of Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, who has worked in close concert with the artist for years to develop the installation concept and oversee its implementation. Every aspect of the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue has been shaped by Nancy’s scholarship and inventive curatorial perspective, and her contribution to this volume constitutes an important new assessment of Cattelan’s oeuvre.

      Lastly, our deepest thanks are due to Maurizio Cattelan, who has devoted his time and energy to the project with unstinting generosity. Maurizio Cattelan: All is a remarkable testament to the power and originality of his creative vision and marks a defining moment in the art of our era.

      Richard Armstrong

       Director

       Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      While Maurizio Cattelan’s work does not adhere to the model of institutional critique in the classic sense by questioning the reifying capacity of the art museum, it nevertheless challenges the authority of the museum at every turn. Cattelan has dedicated his career to undermining figures and institutions of power, the museum being just one among many targets of ridicule. His goal is not to do away with the museum as a platform for art but rather to harness its energy in order to create the unexpected, to change the terms defining what constitutes an exhibition and an artist’s involvement in its making. In short, to work successfully with Cattelan means to become complicit with his schemes and take institutional and personal risks—whether allowing him to break into galleries, steal the contents of another exhibition, or plan an escape route from the show. A host of curators, museum directors, and gallery owners before me have aligned their vision with the artist’s to achieve remarkable and memorable projects that tested the limits of their respective institutions, and the same is true for the Guggenheim, where