Maurizio Cattelan

“They buy an idea, they buy a certificate.”

There’s no better way to finish this year then to look back at the most heated moment at this year’s Art Basel in Miami Beach!

This year’s Art Basel had unexpected turnover when it comes to public eye and it’s judgmental whispers. When gallery Perrotin from Paris displayed Maurizio Catalan’s Banana taped to the wall inside the Convention Center in Miami, and sold it for $120.000, everyone went crazy over it, in positive and negative way.

“Comedian” by Maurizio Catalan - Art Basel 2019

Well, we have to understand that sometimes it is the “NAME” that allows us to do what we want even if we know that it can cause quite a storm. Thats why Art exists… To awake an emotion of any kind. That’s why Maurizio exists - to awake the emotion…shock…surprise and judgment…. which he has been doing for decades now.

Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him being frequently labelled as a joker or prankster of the art world.

Cattelan is one of the most popular and 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.

Cattelan first achieved notoriety on an international scale in New York with La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour), a wax statue of Pope John Paul II hit by a meteorite, which was originally exhibited in 1999 at Kunsthalle Basel. 

“The Ninth Hour” by Maurizio Cattelan

In 2010, L.O.V.E., his public art intervention permanently installed in Piazza Affari, Milan, triggered the reappropriation by citizens of a square otherwise forgotten. That same year, Cattelan launched a biannual, picture-based publication, TOILETPAPER, co-created with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. In 2011, he provoked a lively debate with an installation of two thousand stuffed pigeons, presented at the 54th Venice Biennale. Also in 2011, he was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in which all his works were suspended from the ceiling. 

In 2016, Cattelan replaced a toilet in a restroom at the Guggenheim with a fully functional replica cast in 18-karat gold, making it available to the public. Later that year he was invited to exhibit a selection of his most important works at the Monnaie de Paris, resulting in the retrospective Not Afraid of Love, titled after his work of that name. In 2018 he curated The Artist Is Present, a group show that questioned the most hallowed principles of art in the modern era: originality, intention, and expression. He has exhibited in major European and American museums and participated in the major international exhibitions of contemporary art.

“America” - Maurizio Cattelan, 2016

It is very important to know when to stop.

When situation at Perrotin’s booth at Art Basel escalated and brought other important art pieces in danger, gallery’s director Emmanuel Perrotin announced that they will be pulling out the Banana (“Comedian”) from their booth. People were excited to see the banana, and some of them furious to that point that they were violent and dangerous for the art pieces in their surrounding, so Art Basel management asked them to take the piece off the wall.

We at Paraiso Miami Beach were not surprised by this piece that much because we know the history of the artist and this is something we actually expected since Maurizio’s entire inspiration was banana through his career. Wherever he traveled he would always take one banana with him in order to inspire him as something so simple but so organic and meaningful….

When he started developing idea for the Banana piece he started making banana in Bronze, in Resin but finally came back to his initial idea of the real banana. People might think that he got the idea, went to the store and taped banana to the wall, but this happened after months of research and actual decision to do something that is actually original and raw like any idea in life is….

So let’s finish this text about this genius with his portrait so you guys can meet the Persona and we hope that we will be seeing more of his work in Miami Beach because this is something we all need in our lives….Little bit of something unusual…

Maurizio Cattelan