Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan’s playful, provocative conceptual practice skewers the conventions of art, institutions, and contemporary value systems at large. His works have included a wax statue of Pope John Paul II being hit by a meteorite, an installation of 2,000 stuffed pigeons, and the infamous Comedian (2019), which simply features a banana duct-taped to a wall. Cattelan’s sculptures and installations all traffic in satire and often recall the cheeky conceptualism of Marcel Duchamp. They implicate the viewer, the artist, collectors, and societal notions of good taste. Before he launched his career as an artist, the self-taught Cattelan worked in design. He has exhibited in New York, Paris, London, Milan, Berlin, and Zürich, and participated in the Venice Biennale multiple times. His work has sold for millions on the secondary market.