PRESENTATION: Maurizio Cattelan-The Last Judgment
Maurizio Cattelan is one of the most popular as well as controversial artists on the contemporary art scene. Taking freely from the real world of people and objects, his works are an irreverent operation aimed at both art and institutions. His playful and provocative use of materials, objects, and gestures set in challenging contexts forces commentary and engagement.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: UCCA Archive
“The Last Judgment” is the first solo exhibition in China by Maurizio Cattelan one of the most popular and controversial figures on the international contemporary art scene. Taking its title from Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel, the exhibition is a focused overview of the artist’s more than three decades of often provocative, mocking, and prankish artistic output. Whereas his art has often been presented in a highly specific manner, this exhibition takes a more holistic approach, offering the opportunity to pause and reflect on the artist’s vision and philosophy. “Maurizio Cattelan: The Last Judgment” is curated by Francesco Bonami, and organized by Liu Kaiyun, Edward Guan, Shi Yao, Anna Yang, and Yvonne Lin. On view are 29 works throughout the artist’s career, including his first major work “Lessico Familiare” (1989) and the well-known “Catttelan” (1994), “Bidibidobidiboo” (1996), “Novecento” (1997), and “Comedian” (2019), along with a suite of animal taxidermy works. Site-specific works—such as “Zhang San” (2021), a sculpture outfitted as a homeless person in Beijing, and a performance piece. Works drawn from the artist’s own biography, identity as an artist, and ostensibly self-centered persona paradoxically open up into a multitude of identities and questions confronting the motifs of death and mortality, particularly the artist’s own: The kneeling figure with a paper bag over his head in “No” (2021) pronouncing the condition of destiny unknown; a grave moment in “Untitled” (1997) in the form of a pile of dirt and a hole in the ground the size of the artist’s body; the act of closure in “Mother” (2021), reprised here as a mural based on a photograph of the original 1999 performance. The nemesis of the artist’s alter ego, the elegant and powerful figure of the horse, shows up as an anti-heroic trophy in “Untitled” (2007), trapped in the museum wall. Other works simultaneously mock and pay homage to pop culture and Italian art history, such as the polysemous taxidermied pigeons of “Kids” (2011), Fontana’s slashed canvas in “Untitled” (1999), and the shrunken, miniature Sistine Chapel and its frescoes in “Untitled” (2018). The manipulation of scale is echoed in works reflecting his artistic philosophy such as the small but functioning elevators in “Untitled” (2001). “Working is a bad job” (1993), the artist’s irreverent solution to the labor and struggle of art-making created for his first appearance in the Venice Biennale, returns here as an electronic billboard to be leased out to commercial advertisements. In the performance work “Untitled” (1998), Cattelan pokes at commercializing, global systems of art production as a mascot performer dressed up as Picasso reminds viewers that everything, including art, is at risk of becoming mere entertainment. Along with Cattelan’s poignant questioning of the culture the exhibition stresses the tension between the active choice of judging and the passive condition of being judged. Designed neither to push visitors to search for hidden artworks, nor to engender a theatrical sense of surprise as they encounter the pieces, the exhibition encourages viewers to seek out the stories within each work and to form their own personal connections with—and judgments of—the art presented in this new context.
Photo: Maurizio Cattelan, Stadium, Wood, acrylic, steel, paper, plastic, 100 × 65,1 × 120 cm, Courtesy the artist
Info: Curator: Francesco Bonami, UCCA Offsite, Sea World Culture and Arts Center (SWCAC), No. 1187 Wanghai Road, Shekou, Nanshan, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, Duration: 9/7-10/10/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, https://ucca.org.cn/
