YOU: Maurizio Cattelan’s Scultpture is Dead

Maurizio Cattelan (Padua, Italy, 1960) is well known for his critical, irreverent and almost absurd sculptures and installations. His new project seems to be a most a metaphor of his own work than a critic of the roles in power.

Cattelan is one of the most popular artists of the 21st Century to the point that he is able to create whatever he wants. Don’t forget the controversial Banana he made for Art Basel in 2019, which was valued in $120,000. The artist popularity came with with humorous and critical sculptures and installations against topics around politicis, religion, power, and art itself, which at the time were considered truly masterpieces of contemporary art. But as happens with everybody, there is a point in the creative life of an artist in which the work she / he created are as ambiguous as absurds: no one know if they are a joke or an art failure.

His new sculpture YOU, in view from March 28 to June 26 at Massimo de Carlo in Milan, is an sculpture of himself hanging from the bathroom’s roof of the gallery.

In the official press realease you can red:

“YOU is a hallucination, a simultaneous image of control and failure. A generous welcoming gesture or a sad and inevitable farewell, YOU explores the role of the individual in the collective realm: an admission of surrender, or perhaps an affirmation of kindness. This new intervention by Maurizio Cattelan affirms the death of great powers, while infusing a new energy in the strength of the individual. Despite trying to create a distance between the work and the viewer, Maurizio Cattelan’s YOU is certainly all about us.”

According with the gallery, this new installation that is sourrounded by the luxurious atmosphere of the marble, “A generous welcoming gesture or a sad and inevitable farewell, YOU explores the role of the individual in the collective realm: an admission of surrender, or perhaps an affirmation of kindness. The installation affirms the death of great powers, while infusing a new energy in the strength of the individual. Despite trying to create a distance between the work and the viewer, Maurizio Cattelan’s YOU is certainly all about us”.

What kind of surrender can an artist like Cattelan perform? To what or to whom does his work have to surrender? While the sculpture is spectacular, it could also be an oportunity to question if Cattelan’s work is still alive.