Maurizio cattelan biography of barack

Maurizio Cattelan is one of those artists whose work is hard to ignore — whether or not you take it seriously.

What follows is excerpted from an unauthorized autobiography of Maurizio Cattelan, as told to me over years of assiduous hanging out with.

Maurizio Cattelan is the ultimate sideliner artist, poking holes in art, art history, monumentality, and nationalism.

Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian conceptual artist known for his subversive displays, including a functioning gold toilet titled America.

Maurizio Cattelan: The artist behind the banana art piece, Comedian Maurizio Cattelan was born in Padua, Italy.

Compared to a traditional artist, Cattelan has not done enough.

(Cattelan himself goes back and forth on that.)

Born in Padua, Italy in 1960, the New York-based contemporary conceptual artist is known for his hyperrealism and irreverent, Marcel Duchamp-like approach. Cattelan often remarks that he is not an artist, but someone who fell into making art — including Comedian, a banana duct-taped to the wall at Art Basel Miami Beach that sold for $120,000 in December 2019 after becoming a viral sensation.

Now, Cattelan’s most famous (or infamous) work is set to hit the Sotheby’s New York auction block on November 20.

The fruits of Cattelan’s labor

While Cattelan’s work has always triggered strong reactions, Comedian radically raised his international profile both in the contemporary art world and in the social media-driven mainstream.

Plastered across digital platforms, newsp