Latest news with #Cattelan
Forbes
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Toiletpaper Fuses Together Style And Surrealism In Berlin Exhibition
Toiletpaper has a new exhibition on at Fotografiska Berlin When Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and designer Pierpaolo Ferrari co-founded Toiletpaper Magazine in 2010, they made waves in the art scene for their retro imagery. The magazine, which started out as technicolor pages of strange images, was reminiscent of 1950s adverts seen through the lens of Salvador Dali or Man Ray. Now, 15 years later, it has since expanded into a fashion line and home brand with a very Instagrammable hotel in Milan called Toiletpaper Living, when they're not showing their photos at museums. While Cattelan is known for his viral banana artwork, which was taped to a wall and sold for $6.2 million at auction in 2024, Ferrari is a fashion photographer known for his vintage aesthetic, and has shot magazine covers for Vanity Fair and The Cut, as well as editorials for Thom Browne in the New Yorker. A photo from Toiletpaper on view at Fotografiska Berlin The duo recently opened their latest exhibition, ToiletFotoPaperGrafiska, at Fotografiska Berlin. The exhibition runs until August 31, making it the perfect, fun summer photo exhibition to visit while in Europe (it previously showed at Fotografiska Stockholm). The exhibition features photos from the past 15 years, including photos, mirrored images and more. As Ferrari said in a statement: 'We always strive to break away from the usual conventions and create a raw and personal dialogue between the viewer and the art.' Cattelan adds: 'It's like being invited to the best party of your life, where everyone is wildly intoxicated and you're the only sober person in the room.' A photo from Toiletpaper on view at Fotografiska Berlin Some images include taxidermy birds, persian cats, velvet couches and toothpaste. This duo are not afraid to get weird and take us to very strange places in their photos. Toiletpaper's clothing line is worth checking out, especially their snake-patterned pajama sets, their polka-dotted socks or their bold beach towels. Also check out their collaboration with eyewear brand, Etina Barcelona. If you truly want to stand out, this is where to shop. A photo from Toiletpaper on view at Fotografiska Berlin
Hypebeast
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Maurizio Cattelan Curates ‘The Endless Sunday' at Centre Pompidou-Metz
TheCentre Pompidou-Metzis celebrating its 15th anniversary withThe Endless Sunday, a major exhibition curated by renowned Italian artistMaurizio Cattelan. For the first time, the museum will activate every part of its establishment, from the Grande Nef and Galerie 1 to the rooftops and hidden spaces with more than 400 works from the Centre Pompidou's collection. Cattelan brings these works into dialogue with approximately 30 of his own, offering his signature satire plus a melancholic reflection on modern mythologies. Among them isComedian, his infamous banana duct-taped to the wall, a piece that stirred global debate on the value and absurdity of contemporary art. In this context, it stands as both satire and symbol, reinforcing the exhibition's deeper exploration of cultural rituals and systems of meaning. Structured as a 27-part alphabet, the exhibition moves through themes tied to poems, novels and Sundayis on view through February 2, 2027. Centre Pompidou-Metz1 Parv. des Droits de l'Homme57000 Metz, France
The Guardian
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Gunshots were my obsession': the nicked golden toilet's creator on his new pump-action art
'For a long time,' says Maurizio Cattelan, 'I wanted to do something with gunshots. It was my obsession.' His original idea, back in the 90s, was to have a shooter fire rounds at him as he stood behind bulletproof glass. This was to take place in front of an audience. 'The idea was there,' he says. 'But it was insane.' We should not be too surprised. The controversial Italian conceptualist has made headlines in recent years by taping a banana to a wall (and selling it for a fortune), smashing a meteor into the pope (or his likeness), and plumbing a gold toilet into Oxfordshire's Blenheim Palace (which was then nicked). All in the name of high art satire. Cattelan's work is direct, confrontational, obvious and brutally in your face. And now, in a small show at Gagosian in Mayfair, he has revisited that 90s notion – and blasted huge holes into sheets of gold with a pump-action shotgun. The new works are definitely more health and safety compliant, but still fairly shocking. Each gold panel (actually steel coated in 24-carat) has been shot using a 12-gauge shotgun, leaving cavernous, rusted gashes in the pristine mirrored surface. They are brilliant pieces of conceptual minimalism: grotesquely, abhorrently violent, ludicrously, grossly opulent. He first started firing bullets at artworks after his exhibition at Blenheim Palace in 2019, shooting at gold and black versions of the union jack and the stars and stripes. 'That was a time when nationalism was rampant, but not as bad as today. I liked the idea of using this symbol, but it was a little literal.' So he stripped away the overt symbolism, leaving behind just the gold and the gunshot wounds. 'I'd never been to a shooting range. I'd never seen weapons before. The whole experience, witnessing shooting that doesn't involve any type of violence – I was excited.' But after the initial excitement came the realisation of what guns are for and what they do. Was he shocked when he first saw the holes a gun could make in metal? 'Yeah, I mean, it is energy transforming matter. But I would have been more shocked to see it used on something living.' While these works are relatively small, in New York last year he covered an enormous wall in gold panels, all blasted with AR-15s, the weapon of choice in countless American mass shootings. 'If you do only one panel, you have an artwork. If you do something massive, you have an execution wall – something more menacing.' In New York, the gallery bumf described the works as a comment on the scourge of American gun violence, a reflection of a society losing itself to barbarity while gorging itself on luxury. But in London, the gallery talks instead about how each work has been 'modified' by gunshots as 'metaphors for creation and transformation'. Gun violence has been swapped out for references to the history of Italian minimalism and nods to artists such as Lucio Fontana. This is typical Cattelan, whose work toys with double meanings and punny juxtapositions, flirting with the boundaries between good and bad, to expose bigger truths. Here, with these blasted panels, the bigger truth is societal: we're surrounded by violence and death, while the rich are getting richer. The works come across as attacks on gun culture and an uncaring society, and yet they're trophy artworks, ridiculously expensive objects for the mansions of the mega-rich. Are these collectors buying them as comments on violence, or as garish gold home decor? 'We can talk about gun violence,' he says. 'But it's not the main subject. I like works that are open to interpretation.' Take Comedian, the banana he taped to a wall at a swanky art fair in 2019 and sold for $120,000, causing viral uproar in the process. It was at once a comment on the preposterousness of the art market and an object of ludicrous art market-iness. 'We didn't know what was going to happen. We just tried to see how far we could go. I could not be in an art fair as a painter, or as a commodity. I thought it was a moment to make a statement.' Comedian exposed the staggering greed and capitalist opportunism of the art world, which uses aesthetics as an excuse for speculation and the accumulation of wealth. But the art world lapped it up. It was like watching turkeys clapping for Christmas. When it was subsequently bought at auction for $5.2m in November 2024 by crypto investor Justin Sun, who ate it live on stage, all of its unsubtle ludicrousness was laid bare. 'This guy was looking for attention,' says Cattelan. 'I think he did a good job.' But leaving things so open to interpretation has its risks. I tell Cattelan about seeing his 2007 installation Ave Maria just before the pandemic. The work is a disembodied arm sieg heil-ing out of a wall, locked in a perpetual fascist salute. Its messaging might seem obvious, its anti-fascist intentions clear to any viewer. But when I saw it, a group of students were taking selfies as they gleefully sieg heil-ed back at the artwork. He grimaces. 'If I could have a list of works to erase, that work would be on it. We don't own the meaning of what we do.' But erase it he did, in a way. 'One of the hands of Ave Maria was on my desk for a long time, and one day I chopped off the fingers. This fascist salute was severed, and what was left was one finger.' So Ave Maria became Love, a huge carrara marble middle finger installed permanently in the heart of Milan's financial district in 2010. And now the golden toilet. At Blenheim in 2019, he installed a fully functioning, fully gold toilet, and called it America. There aren't a lot of ways to take that. Although created in 2016 for the Guggenheim in New York, the exhibition at Blenheim happened right in the middle of Donald Trump's first term. There was nothing implicit in the work's messaging: this was art about excess, wealth, greed, authoritarianism, and a nation going down the pan. A few days after being installed, the golden bog was stolen. Two men have now been convicted in connection with its burglary. But since America was nicked, things have only worsened: authoritarianism is rampant, Trump is back, the far right is flourishing. Can the work of a conceptual prankster like Cattelan do anything in the face of such a torrent of violence, inequality and discrimination? 'I don't think art has the power to oppose regimes,' he says quietly, thoughtfully. 'But people have the power. People can oppose.' Maurizio Cattelan's Bones is at Gagosian Davies Street, London, until 24 May.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
March design news: Maurzio Cattelan goes Greek, art teapots and house paint that changes colour
This is the final monthly design news round-up, so we've made it a bumper edition. As well as previewing some shows that will be this year's Salone del Mobile in Milan, there's pyjamas from Grayson Perry and Greek mythology reinterpreted by conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan. Enjoy. If you've followed the case of the stolen gold toilet or loved the 2019 artwork Comedian – a banana taped to a wall – then Maurizio Cattelan will need no introduction. The Italian conceptual artist has been provoking and delighting audiences in equal measure since the 1990s. Cattelan has a new show, Bones, opening at the Gagosian in London in April and, to run alongside this, a set of posters will appear in Tube stations. For these, Cattelan has used the tropes of classic Greek myths to portray the trials of modern life. So next time you're on the central line, look out for Sisyphus with a shopping trolley or Atlas dressed for the 9-5 with the weight of the world on his back. An exhibition of Cattelan's drawings and watercolours will run concurrently at Burlington Arcade in London and a book of his art, Leftovers: The Bonami's Cattelans, will also be publisehd this month. Maurizio Cattelan's Bones opens at Gagosian on 8 April Fashion house Loewe's Salone del Mobile 2025 exhibition is a must for fans of tablescaping and art. The Spanish brand is showing Loewe Teapots at the Palazzo Citterio for the annual furniture fair, a collection of 25 pots created by artists, architects and designers including Patricia Urquiola, Edmund de Waal, David Chipperfield and Rosemarie Trockel. Each has brought their own unique style to the tea table staple. From Trockel's wonky tea urn redolent of local cafes to Takayuki Sakiyama's elegant white twisted ceramic vessel, these pots tell a story of tea's cultural legacy. Teapots are making a surprise comeback among millennials, but this exhibition is also a vivid reminder of how the everyday can be beautifully reimagined. Loewe will show tea, caddies coasters and candles at Salone and the house signature tea – made with Postcard Teas – will also be available for your own teatime ritual. Teapots by Loewe is at Palazzo Citterio, Milan, from 7-13 April. Loewe house tea is available online from 7 April Lucienne Day was one of the most influential designers of the 50s and 60s, creating textiles, wallpapers and ceramics that came to epitomise the post-war British interiors style. Now Mini Moderns, the British design studio that specialises in midcentury interiors, has dug through Day's personal collection of textiles and wallpapers at The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester and brought some of her quintessential designs back into production – the designs known as Provence and Syncopation. Provence, with its abstract shapes, was one of the three wallpapers that Day designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Mini Moderns worked closely with the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation on the project and founder, trustee and chair Paula Day says she's thrilled with the results. 'Less well-known than her textiles, her wallpapers are equally brilliant mid-century designs which look perfectly at home in today's interiors. Mini Moderns' meticulous attention to every tiny detail has resulted in beautifully authentic new productions which bring these historic designs back to vibrant life.' Lucienne Day wallpapers by Mini Moderns are available online While researching eco paints for his home renovation project, designer and inventor Joe Doucet started thinking about a more fundamental problem. 'I wanted my own home to be as green as possible,' says Doucet. 'I was researching the effect of colour on a building's temperature and realised the significant impact dark vs light colours can have on a building's temperature. It struck me that in an ideal scenario a building could change colour just like leaves change with the seasons on trees.' After much experimentation, Doucet has managed to develop a paint that is dark grey below 25°C and white at temperatures higher than that. 'The colour changes almost instantly at that temperature, so a building is either one colour or the other.' As a rule of thumb, a house-owner could save an average of 20-30% of the energy used to heat and cool a building, passively and without the need to physically repaint a structure each season. Doucet, who has a patent pending on the formulation, says: 'I'm very excited by the sustainability aspect of this paint, but I also find the idea that built environments can change with the seasons quite poetic.' Samuel Alexander's therapist was the first person to suggest he turn his hand to carving. At the time, Alexander was experiencing a deep depression but, as he says in his new book, The Green Wood Carver: 'I knew that from my first push of the knife into wood that I had unveiled something truly healing.' He is now a full-time green wood carver – a craft worker who uses wet wood, usually to make vessels and spoons. As well as a strong instagram following, Alexander's work has been promoted by British clothes brand Toast as part of their New Makers initiative. He has also started running courses to introduce other beginners to carving and woodwork, always with craft's therapeutic value at its heart. It's this idea that has led him to write this how-to book, which acts as an introduction to the practical side of tools, materials and safety. But it's also a 'why-do', an explanation of how carving makes him feel and how mindful work can help you work through dilemmas. Or, as Alexander puts it in his introduction: 'It was as if the slow, spiralling shavings of wood were pirouetting away my troubles and transporting me into a calm, harmonious state, like a walk through a forest.' The Green-Wood Carver: Slow Woodcraft for Beginners is out now (Skittledog, £16.99) Leading British retailer Liberty London is launching its 150th anniversary year celebrations with a very special collaboration. The arts and crafts department store has worked with Grayson Perry to develop an original fabric design. The floral pattern is inspired by Shirley Smith, a new muse persona created by Perry for his upcoming exhibition. After a mental health episode, Shirley Smith now believes she is the heir to London's Wallace Collection, one of the most important gallerys of decorative and fine art in the world (the Perry show Delusions of Grandeur is held at the Wallace Collection). The artist's new works – some handcrafted and some created with digital technology – are meant to decorate an imaginary home and the show includes ceramics, tapestries and portraits. For the exhibition launch, Shirley's Liberty fabric will be available as pyjamas and a scarf. In May, you'll also be able to buy cushions covered in Shirley's delightful design. Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur runs until 26 October at The Wallace Collection. Perry's fabric in a limited edition Liberty collection is available now. Interior cushions launch in May For those who associate Italian houseware brand Alessi with chic kitchens, the new project presented next week during Fuorisalone, the events around Salone, may come as a surprise. The Last Pot is an exhibition of funeral urns designed by creatives including architect Daniel Libeskind and designers Michael Anastassiades and Audrey Large. The project was conceived during a dinner party in 2010 at Alberto Alessi's house when the journey from pot to urn, and the idea of how the purpose of vessels change during a lifetime, was the table chat. The resultant receptacles are beautiful meditations on memory, time and the circle of life, such as Naoto Fukasawa's earthernware house or Anastassiades' egg-inspired container. Long time Alessi collaborator Philippe Starck's metal, stylised bone-shaped urn would look very much at home next to his Juicy lemon squeezer. The exhibition catalogue will also feaure an appendix containing recipes connected to funeral rituals around the world, from the Sancocho soup of Santo Domingo to the Indian Kheer. The Last Pot is at Biblioteca Ostinata, Milan, 8-12 April If you missed the Vanessa Bell show at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, there's an updated version coming to Charleston. New loans for this exhibition include door panels created by Bell while holidaying in West Wittering, Sussex in 1915, as well as the painted door of her attic studio at Charleston, both of which are being shown for the first time. There'll also be a comprehensive display of Bell's book covers for the novels of her sister, Virginia Woolf. Before she moved to Charleston, Bell was a director at Omega Workshops, an artist and designer-run studio which played an influential role in interior design in the 1910s. One of Bell's best-known works for Omega was the Maud fabric – named after Lady Maud Cunard, the workshop's patron. Darren Clarke, head of collections, research and exhibitions at Charleston, says: 'The exhibition really helps to shine new light on Bell's life, on her art and design practice and prove, if proof were needed, what an important and influential figure she is in British modern art.' Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour is at Charleston until 21 September
New York Times
18-03-2025
- New York Times
Two Men Found Guilty in Theft of $6 Million Gold Toilet
Ever since a hooded gang smashed its way into Blenheim Palace — an English stately home that was Winston Churchill's birthplace — and stole a fully functioning 18-karat gold toilet more than five years ago, the glittering john has been missing seemingly without a trace. On Tuesday, two men were found guilty over the theft and sale of the shiny commode, an artwork by Maurizio Cattelan, the Italian conceptual artist best known for another high-profile piece — a banana taped to a wall that was auctioned off last year for $6.2 million. His toilet, titled 'America,' was insured for $6 million and, despite that high value, is believed to have been divided up and sold. After a three-week-long trial at Oxford Crown Court, a jury found Michael Jones, 39, guilty of burglary, and Fred Doe, 36, guilty of converting or transferring criminal property. A third man, James Sheen, 40, had already pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to burglary, transferring criminal property and conspiracy to transfer criminal property. The police found Mr. Sheen's DNA on a sledgehammer left at the crime scene as well as in a stolen truck used in the raid. Investigators also found hundreds of gold fragments on a pair of his sweatpants. All three men will be sentenced at a later date. The jury found a fourth defendant, Bora Guccuk, 41, a London jeweler, not guilty of converting or transferring criminal property. During the trial, Julian Christopher, the lead prosecutor, told the court that the crime had begun with an 'audacious' five-minute raid. Just before 5 a.m. on Sep. 14, 2019, Mr. Christopher said, a gang used a car and truck to smash through wooden gates that blocked a road up to the palace, and then used sledgehammers and crowbars to smash one of the building's windows to gain entry. Once inside, the gang dislodged the toilet, causing a small flood in the room. Security cameras then captured several men rolling a large item toward the car and placing it into the vehicle's trunk, the court heard. Those cameras also captured someone carrying what appeared to be a toilet seat toward the vehicles, he said. The gang then sped off. Mr. Christopher said it appeared that the artwork, which weighed over 200 pounds, had since been 'split up into smaller amounts of gold' and sold on. During the trial, prosecutors told the court that Mr. Jones had visited Blenheim Palace to scout Mr. Cattelan's artwork and taken a photograph of the lock on the toilet stall's door. Mr. Jones denied any involvement in the raid, and told the jury that he had visited the palace because he was interested in seeing Mr. Cattelan's art. He said he had even used the toilet, as visitors were permitted to. Asked what that was like, Mr. Jones replied, 'Splendid.' The toilet, which Mr. Cattelan has described as both an absurd statement on inequality and a gift to museumgoers to get up close to something so valuable, had made headlines worldwide long before its theft. Three years earlier, the artist had installed it at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where it became a social media sensation, with visitors lining up to see it. Mr. Cattelan, known for prankish stunts including once stealing the contents of a gallery in the Netherlands and then presenting the looted goods as his own work, did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the verdict was announced. But shortly after the 2019 robbery, he told The New York Times in an email that he had initially thought the raid was a prank. 'Who's so stupid to steal a toilet?' he recalled thinking. He 'had forgotten for a second,' he added, that the toilet 'was made out of gold.'
