Maurizio Cattelan Biography and Artwork

born Padua (ITALY) 1960

Cattelan was born in Padua, Italy in 1960. He did not attend art school but taught himself. He worked as a cook, gardener, nurse and mortuary attendant, before turning to making art with the hope that the art world might offer him "better treatment". He began his creative adventures by making furniture for his apartment - "functional furniture with art meaning". His designs were nothing special, he says, but they sparked a lot of interest among Italian magazine editors and manufacturers. Cattelan felt that designing was not right for him, and an early show in bologna proved to be a turning point. Today he is one of the best-known Italian artists to have emerged internationally in the 1990s, and his reputation continues to grow.

Maurizio Cattelan's art often combines sculpture and performance. Cattelan has a subtle sense of the paradoxes of transgression, the limits of tolerance. Since the early 1990s, his work has provoked and challenged the limits of contemporary value systems through its use of irony and humor. He teases the art world without ever falling into the naive trap of thinking he can subvert a system of which he is part. The characters and personas inhabiting Maurizio Cattelan's world are ghostly appearances in a personal theatre of the absurd: policemen flipped upside down, stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling, a swami who buried himself in sand for hours at a time ... suspended between reality and fiction, Maurizio Cattelan's work simulates and subverts the rules of culture and society in a continuous game of detournement, acts of insubordination and symbolical theft. Constantly exploring different materials, contexts and strategies, he refuses to take any moral or ideological position, concentrating instead on reproducing reality in all its complexities. While he does not offer solutions, he shows that one can survive and use the system without being consumed by it.

He has had solo exhibitions in the most important museums worldwide such as the MOMA, New York and the Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Other recent presentation include Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany and at the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He has had the most numerous participations at the Venice Biennale. During his five-time presence at the Biennale he imposed his work as a crucial point of reference in today's art. Maurizio Cattelan works are part of some of the most important public and private collections worldwide such as: Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens; Fondation Pinault, Paris; Jumex Collection, Mexico City; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; Elaine Dannheisser Collection, New York; Gilles Fuchs Collection, Paris; Seattle Museum Of Contemporary Art, Seattle; Migros Museum, Zurich; F.R.A.C., Languedoc Roussillon; Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Puteaux; F.R.A.C., Nord-pas de Calais; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Castello di Rivoli, Turin.

Maurizio Cattelan lives and works in Italy and in the USA.

Select Timeline

Select Exhibitions

• 1998 - Projects 65: Maurizio Cattelan, MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
• 1999 - Maurizio Cattelan, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel
• 1999 - 48th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale / Biennale di Venezia, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
• 1999 - Maurizio Cattelan, Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London (England)
• 1999 - Maurizio Cattelan, Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milano
• 2000 - Maurizio Cattelan, Center for Contemporary Art, CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu
• 2000 - Maurizio Cattelan, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, NY
• 2001 - Maurizio Cattelan, Doug Aitken, Jack Pierson, Ed Rusha, Terry Richardson, Jeff, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris
• 2001 - 49th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale / Biennale di Venezia, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
• 2001 - Maurizio Cattelan, FARGFABRIKEN - Center for Contemporary Art and Architecture, Stockholm
• 2001 - Lets be friends, Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Zurich
• 2002 - Maurizio Cattelan: Felix, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago - MCA Chicago, Chicago, IL
• 2002 - HOLLYWOOD IS A VERB, Gagosian Gallery - London - Britannia Street, London (England)
• 2002 - Maurizio Cattelan, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, NY
• 2003 - Recaptured Nature, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, NY
• 2003 - Maurizio Cattelan Installation, Museum Ludwig, Cologne
• 2004 - None of the above, SI Swiss Institute, New York, NY
• 2004 - Contested Fields, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
• 2004 - What's moderne, Gagosian Gallery - New York, New York, NY
• 2004 - Maurizio Cattelan, UNTITLED, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milano
• 2004 - Maurizio Cattelan - Special Project, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento
• 2004 - Whitney Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Biennial, New York, NY
• 2005 - War is over - 1945 - 2005 la liberta dellarte da Picasso a Warhol a Cattelan, GAMeC - Galleria dArte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Bergamo
• 2005 - Bidibidobidiboo, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
• 2005 - Universal Experience - Art, Life, and the Tourist's Eye, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago - MCA Chicago, Chicago, IL
• 2006 - HIM, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago - MCA Chicago, Chicago, IL

Select Artwork

• la nona ora - 1999
• love lasts forever - 1999
• him - 2001
• bidibidobidiboo - 1996
• stadium - 1991

Quotes

• "I tend not to work with a specific person in mind. Art is a matter of statistics, It's not about individuals. It's about people."
• " 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."

Quick Facts

• Did not attend art school and is self taught.
• One of the best-known italian artists to have emerged internationally in the 1990s.
• Art often combines sculpture and performance.
• Maurizio Cattelan lives and works in italy and in the USA.
• He created a magazine called Permanent Food which includes images stolen from other magazines.
• Cattelan has participated in five editions of the Venice Biennale.

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