DEC 1: Maurizio Cattelan
December 2010
Is nothing sacred to artist Maurizio Cattelan? Since rising to
prominence in the Nineties, the notorious Italian provocateur has
created a lifelike model of JFK in a coffin, a sculpture of Pope John
Paul II crushed beneath a meteorite, and a likeness of Hitler praying on
his knees. In 1995, when he started producing such magazines as
Permanent Food, a scrapbook of bits and pieces culled from other
magazines, and Charley, a catalog of previously published contemporary
art torn from its binding and grittily rephotographed, Cattelan took a
sledgehammer to the concept of creative ownership. The name of his
newest publication, Toilet Paper—available December 1 at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in
Los Angeles—is a direct reference to the disposable nature of
images. “Sooner or later all magazines end up in the
toilet,” Cattelan says. Funded by Greek collector Dakis
Joannou’s Deste Foundation, Toilet Paper was conceived, cast, and
shot with Italian photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari, with whom Cattelan
first collaborated for the cover of W’s 2009 Art Issue. The
surreal and original photos include a man in a nun’s habit
shooting up, a face with no nose, and a close-up of a bloody hand
wielding a hammer. “There is no theme but a sort of mood,”
explains Cattelan. “Some of the pictures are more durable than
others. But, you know, that’s the story of any magazine.”
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