Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's tongue-in-cheek ephemeral sculpture entitled "Comedian" (2019), which made headlines at Art Basel Miami Beach three years ago, is on view at the Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul as part of "WE," his first solo exhibition in the country. Yonhap |
By Park Han-sol
A ripe banana with a price tag of $120,000 duct-taped to a wall. That was enough to make the art world go bananas in December 2019, when the "ephemeral sculpture" proudly made its appearance at Art Basel Miami Beach.
Sure, there's quite an obvious difference between the cost of the two ingredients and their final purchase price. But, what's more, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian," when sold, does not include either of those things.
What one buys is the "idea" of the taped banana, Galerie Perrotin, the gallery responsible for bringing Cattelan's work to the prestigious art fair, noted. To be more precise, what the buyer gets is a "certificate of authenticity" from the artist along with a detailed 14-page set of instructions on how the sculpture should be installed.
That's why the gallery officials simply replaced the store-bought fruit with another one without batting an eye when a random performance artist came up to the piece during the fair and devoured it within seconds. The slowly rotting physical object is gone, but the idea lives on.
Italian artist and provocateur Maurizio Cattelan / Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art |
Viewers in Korea can make up their own minds about the piece, now on view at the Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul as part of the artist's first solo exhibition in the country.
"WE" is a comprehensive survey of the art world's prankster's 38 sculptures, installations and murals that have garnered both praise and scorn over his three-decade career.
It's the largest show ever held since his 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York, where all 128 of his works were dangled in midair like a surrealist Christmas tree in the museum's iconic rotunda.
Maurizio Cattelan's "La Nona Ora" (1999) / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol |
Having received no formal training in art, Cattelan "intruded" into the contemporary art scene and rose to global stardom in the 1990s as one of the most controversial creators of the time. The 62-year-old's unsettlingly realistic, satirical sculptures take a jab at socially ingrained norms and notions of authority in politics and religion.
His "La Nona Ora" brings an absurd scenario to life, where a life-size wax figure of Pope John Paul II in white robes gets struck by a meteorite. At the museum, the destabilizing sculpture is placed facing the wooden replica of the Vatican City's Sistine Chapel.
"Him" takes it a step further by turning Adolf Hitler into a sheepish schoolboy on his knees seemingly asking for forgiveness. And what about "Frank and Jamie," a pair of uniformed New York City police officers doing a headstand along a wall?
Maurizio Cattelan's "Him" (2001) / Yonhap |
The Italian artist doesn't shy away from dethroning symbols of power and pretense in the art world, either.
He parodies Argentine-Italian painter Lucio Fontana's signature slashed canvas by making the cuts in the famous sign of the letter Z for vigilante Zorro. A photograph of his 1999 performance "A Perfect Day" is also on view, where he duct-taped his art dealer Massimo De Carlo to the gallery's white wall in Milan for hours for the exhibition's opening day. Remind you of anything?
And at the entrance and lobby of Leeum lie two wax effigies of homeless men ? "Donghoon and Junho," who fooled this reporter for a good minute into thinking they were real ? as a wry commentary on the privileged status of museums.