Dear Mr. Cattelan,
I am one of your followers of your Instagram page. I am so excited with your single-post approach “ The Single Post Instagram”, as you will delete the post regularly, another new post will go up. Therefore, I always look forward to your updated one of the kind post show up in my feed by chance. Your post is irrelevant but hilarious, I bet you must be a funny person with great sense of humor.
From your works, people think you manipulate and make fun of reality, but you think that reality is far more provocative than your art. You said, “ You should walk on the street and see real beggars, not my fake one. You should witness a real skinhead rally. I just take it; I’m always borrowing pieces - crumbs really - of everyday reality. If you think my work is very provocative, it means that reality is extremely provocative, and we just don’t react it. Maybe we no longer pay attention to the way we live in the world.” It is particularly true when we don’t feel pain and get used to these ridiculous things that happen to us everyday. Andy Warhol also said “ I used to think that everything was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell? I can’t tell if a person is just being funny or if they’re really crazy.”
We are being FUNNY or really CRAZY?
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”, a speech made by Haruki Murakami reminded me.
As a “funny” or “crazy” artist, which side should I stand with, a wall or an egg? What is my role? What is the value if I make works to confront the wall?
Again reading your interview with Barbara Casavecchia, I might have some clues: “Everyone knows that artists don’t change society. Artists take part in the process of information. If artist only do cubes, then everything the world will know about art is cubes. But if artist tackle different subjects, these start to get into differential dialogues regarding the nature and circumstance of art. Maybe this doesn’t change the world, but at least it changes the context, where one has a chance to experience it in unexpected ways.”
Mr. Cattelan, thank you for your inspiring works which always try to touch upon themes that are meaningful to everyone.
Best,
Puipui
Jan 2019
MAURIZIO CATTELAN
UNTITLED
TWO ENVELOPES MIXED MEDIA WORK