Maurizio Cattelan
self-portrait created by the artist and Pierpaolo Ferrari for LUX

Maurizio Cattelan
, Italy’s most celebrated living artist, tells Darius Sanai about surrealism, failing at school, and why art can never be a commentary on society. Pencil Portrait by Jonathan Newhouse. Photographic portraits of Maurizio Catellan created for LUX by the artist

Italy’s greatest living artist – and one of Europe’s most celebrated artists of this century – is also something of a philosopher, if you read some of his sharp-tongued musings over the years; or, indeed, if you look at his art. Among Maurizio Cattelan
’s most celebrated creations are a solid-gold toilet and a very famous banana taped to a wall in an art fair (which was subsequently eaten by an art student).

Some of his work echoes Voltaire, with its artful, humorous but piercing satirisation of elements of our times – until you examine more closely and wonder what, exactly, is the target of his satire. His biannual magazine, Toiletpaper, which features beautiful, disturbing, engrossing images created with his collaborator, the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari, could be seen as surreal, satirical or something else entirely.

Speaking with Cattelan is how I imagine it would be like to be toyed with by a mischievous octopus. You think you have an idea of an answer, and then another leg curls round your head from behind and tweaks your ear. The son of a truck driver and a cleaner, with no formal training in art, Cattelan did not shine at school: a million parents around the world would have been forgiven for assuming this son of Padua, northern Italy, was destined not to do anything with his life.

Illustration of Maurizio Cattelan
by Jonathan Newhouse, 2023

And yet his blue-collar parents produced one of the most sophisticated, thoughtful and intelligent artists I have met; and also one of the hardest to pigeonhole. He is not, by his own admission, a painter. Is he a sculptor? An installation artist? A surrealist? What kind of art is a banana taped to the wall, or any of the works he has created on these pages (and on our cover) for LUX? Is he really what his art suggests he is, a mix of Marcel Duchamp, Monty Python and Andy Warhol?

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After some brain-scrambling and highly entertaining and engaging exchanges, I think I have the answer. But why don’t you read our interview below and come to your own conclusions. Like mine, they will probably be wrong, for Cattelan is a playful yet deadly serious chimera who, as his elementary-school teachers probably said, can never quite be pinned down.

Darius Sanai: Your parents were not in the art world. That must have made it difficult for you to enter the art scene. Did you meet any resistance?
Maurizio Cattelan
: Resistance is not the right word to describe it. The difference between people lies only in their having greater or lesser access to economic possibilities and knowledge, and in being successful in accessing these two elements when the starting conditions do not allow it. All the choices that I have made are aimed at seeking that access. I am a devotee of free will much more than of destiny: in this sense, the Catholic religion has had no influence on me, while the Lutheran heresy is much more in my comfort zone. I am convinced that destiny is nothing but the sum of our choices. Regarding what my parents would have thought of me being an artist, I was lucky enough not to discover it.

DS: What did you want to do when you were at school?
MC: My childhood was not an easy one, but it was not special at all – I share this burden with many people before and after me, who suffered from the same condition. The first memory I have from school was a suspension in first grade. It was an agitated, very proletarian class. I don’t remember why but the teacher wrote in the notebook that I shouldn’t show up the next day. My parents were meant to sign the note from the teacher, but I spent a whole day imitating my parents’ signatures so as not to face their judgment and punishment. They never found out. Also, the report card never arrived at my parents’, because I kept forging their signatures.

Maurizio Cattelan
self-portrait created by the artist and Pierpaolo Ferrari for LUX

DS: You had no formal art training. Does this mean that a great artist needs no training?
MC: Not at all, but it was true for me–art training would have made me give up. The most distressing gift I ever received was a painter’s kit: it had everything I needed to paint, and I had no idea how to use it. It was a year at home that reminded me how inadequate I was as a painter, or at working with my hands in general. It was really frustrating: they were tools that I wanted to try but at the same time I knew I wasn’t able to master them.

DS: You are a satirist, a disruptor. Why?
MC: Please, you tell me, because I feel like the most boring person I know!

DS: Is your art a commentary on society?
MC: Not at all. I’ve always believed that if something can be reduced to one clear concept, it is as sure as hell artistically dead. Art has no direct and unique intent, otherwise it is a problem that has already been resolved, and there’s nothing interesting in this. So, you’ll never hear me affirming a show has one single objective – otherwise, it would be simple advertising. Art is good for you as long as you make whatever you want out of it.

DS: Is one of your aims to create discomfort in those viewing your art? If so, why?
MC: I promise you I have no such nasty aim. I do what I do to deal with my problems, if they create discomfort it is not something planned deliberately. I simply can’t help it.

Maurizio Cattelan
self-portrait created by the artist and Pierpaolo Ferrari for LUX

DS: Who are your forebears? Duchamp? Picasso?
MC: The maximum I can say is that I sometimes dream about finding a bear in my closet. I’m not sure if it is its dimensions or its teeth, but it is quite scary. Imagine if I also had fore-bears!

DS: What effect would you like your art to have on the world?
MC: I would not ask this question in these terms: a flower blooms because its time came, not because there is a reason or effect it can forsee. Similarly, it happens with art, design and all forms of innovation: they happen when the time tis right, it is as simple as this.

DS: Does it trouble you that only the wealthy can buy art that is considered “great” now? What is the relationship between art and its price?
MC: Artworks, art institutions and the art market are linked together, as they form an indissoluble chain that allows the machine to work. Experience teaches us that light cannot exist without darkness and that an ecosystem cannot be balanced if a prey doesn’t have its predator: this is also the case in the art world.

DS: Does it not trouble you that many great works, including yours, are locked in private collections? What can be done to change this (except a revolution)?
MC: It would trouble me if the collectors has no interest in showing them, but since it is in their own interest to show them around as it would increase their value, I don’t see a big issue there. Wise collectors assemble collections that are not purely speculative, and they can be the best companion for an artist. They can help a lot in developing and giving birth to what you have in mind: the fact that you can dream about something because a collector is supporting you opens an entire world of possibilities.

Comedian, 2019, by Maurizio Cattelan

DS: Is revolution a good idea?
MC: It is always a good idea when it’s performed, and not spoken.

DS: Can you describe how you create a work, from inspiration to completion?
MC: My favourite part is the ideation, then I prefer to let others take care of the practicalities, as realisation is a sea I can’t navigate. My contribution is the initial one: the conception of a work is the most interesting part for me, everything is new and exciting. The more you get into the practical phase, the more impatient I become to start with another one: I don’t like the things I already know.

DS: You have said all decoration is disturbing; and yet you have Toiletpaper Home, a homewares line. Should home decoration be disturbing also?
MC: Did I say so? Maybe I was referring to my place; that is totally empty. But I love to think that Toiletpaper images could be applied to home decoration – it has always been a project that knows no limit.

DS: Are you a surrealist? A sensationalist? Absurdist? Or any other kind of “ist”?
MC: I am a 1-ist of contradiction.

You, 2021, by Maurizio Cattelan
at Massimo de Carlo, Milan, 2022

DS: Is there a morality, a commentary on the human condition or society in your works?
MC: I believe I already answered this, but just to be clear: art should not have a straightforward , unique clear message, otherwise it is advertising.

DS: You have said that if you have been able to amke good art, it’s because of your flaws. What are those?
MC: Le me answer as if I was in a job interview: I’m a perfectionist.

DS: What are your best works of art?
MC: Only time will tell.

DS: Should the banana have been eaten?
MC: Only if next time the peel and tape are also eaten.

Installation view of ALL, 2011, by Maurizio Cattelan
, at Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2011

DS: What role do you think shock value plays in contemporary art?
MC: I wish for every artist’s work to be incendiary, and to never satisfy expectations. In the latter case, it is a style exercise and a waste of time, both for the artist and for the audience.

DS: Your recent collaboration with Gucci explores appropriation and originality. How important is it to be original in the art world today?
MC: Culture has been rewritten many times from many different points of view. If we look at history, copying has been the method of disseminating knowledge as much as in the contemporary world: scribes copied books to ensure future generations had the same knowledge and to preserve their culture over the centuries. A few years earlier, the Romans copied Greek sculptures, as today we copy the great classics and see them in souvenir shops. Copying is a concept as old as humanity, because it is the presupposition of knowledge tout court.

Read more: An Interview with William Kentridge

DS: What about Longchamp, what are you doing there?
MC: It’s a collaboration, a capsule that witnesses the marriage between Longchamp and Toiletpaper. I am looking forward to discovering what the result will be.

DS: Are you a Voltaire of the art world?
MC: You tell me, as I’m not sure of who I am in general, never mind in the art world!

Darius Sanai with Maurizio Cattelan
and Pierpaolo Ferrari

DS: Which artists, living or dead, do you admire most?
MC: All those who did what they did under a sense of urgency.

DS: What or who is overrated in the art world?
MC: All those who did what they did NOT under a sense of urgency.

DS: Will you create digital art?
MC: I’d rather not, I’m far too old for that.

The Longchamp x Toiletpaper Le Pliage collection is at Longchamp stores and lonchamp.com. A limited-edition issue of Toiletpaper features the collaboration.

toiletpapermagazine.org

Photographer: Pierpaolo Ferrari
Art Director: Antonio Colomboni
Set Designer: Michela Natella
Set Builder: Lorenzo Dispensa
Hair and Makeup: Lorenzo Zavatta
Stylist: Elisa Zaccanti

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

Couple of Sip, 2014

Bangladeshi contemporary artist Shimul Saha experiments with a broad range of unique mediums. Here, Charlie Sokol explores how Saha shows concepts of health, political and societal issues in his works

Shimul Saha’s works and techniques are constantly inspired by changes in the world around him. From using light and shadows to engravings and using ancient sewing methods, the mediums he uses correlate to the messages he portrays through his works.

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In Couple Of Sip, the artist uses light and shadow to project a mesh of male and female symbols to expose and question the inequality between men and women.

Which Face Wants To take I & II, 2022

His conceptual forms also highlight cultural changes. A recent work which merges architectural structures, Which Face Wants To Take – I & II, represents the interlinking of culture from the Mughal Empire, Britain and East Pakistan, all of which are closely tied to Bangladesh’s history. Saha was able to do this through the use of a centuries-old stitching technique, originating in the eastern Indian states of West Bengal and Orissa, to create a kantha (patchwork cloths made from rags).

Awe and Dread, 2014

Awe and Dread is a series of etchings in response to the artist’s time spent in Remakree, in the Bandarban hill district in Bangladesh, in 2014. Saha sought to understand a group of indigenous people called the Marma. The intricate prints are intended to tell stories from their daily lives and their connection to Buddhism.

“The medium is based on the concept. To develop my creative process I do select my art material according to my work’s notion because every material has its own identity and character to express something. Sometimes the material speaks on my behalf. I love to explore new mediums, because I do believe, that if creation is unique and updated then why not try new mediums for each creation,” explains Saha.

Organic to Organ – V, 2022

Organic to Organ – V serves as an exploration of the various methods employed in modern food cultivation. Saha prompts us to contemplate the methods by which we obtain our nourishment. Emphasising the importance of organicity in sustaining and safeguarding life, the work highlights the adverse effects of synthetic pesticides and toxins, which ultimately jeopardise our most vital organs.

Self Portrait, 2016

Identity is a key feature in Saha’s works. He recognises the modern era of identification for individuals in the form of biometric scans and numbers. Self Portrait explores this idea, as a series of numbers is presented on top of the image of a fingerprint. Saha remarks that “wherever I am, I am a number”.

Read more: Rafiqun Nabi: Exploring Bangladeshi society through art

Saha’s work will be displayed at Kunsthaus, Zurich as part of a show by the Britto Arts Trust from September 2023 

This article was published in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

3D lenticular print of a slipper orchid from the 2016 series ‘Naturalium’ by Rob Munday, launched at Photo London 2017

How would you like your children’s portrait done – in oils, large-format photography,or 3D hologram? LUX Editor-at-Large Gauhar Kapparova meets Tamara Beckwith, the London society art dealer who represents Rob Munday, holographic artist extraordinaire

Artist Rob Munday

If, as a creator of portraits for global high society, you had to choose two subjects to star in your portfolio, you couldn’t do much better than Karl Lagerfeld and the Queen Elizabeth II.

And that is precisely who is on show, in 3D, downstairs at Tamara Beckwith’s chic The Little Black Gallery in west London. Beckwith, who has transformed from It Girl to charity supremo and art dealer over the past decade, represents Rob Munday, the near-legendary holograph and graphic artist.

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Munday was commissioned by Chanel and AnOther Magazine to create a portrait for a limited-run holographic cover for its 15th anniversary issue. And before that, he had worked with graphic designer-artist Chris Levine to create an official holographic portrait of the Queen.

Other subjects have included Angelina Jolie, musicians Noel and Liam Gallagher, sports presenter and former England football star Gary Lineker, and children’s author Michael Morpurgo.

A portrait of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld by Rob Munday, commissioned for the 15th anniversary issue of AnOther Magazine in 2016 and used for a 3D lenticular image

Now you can have Munday create a holo-portrait of you, your children or anyone else in your life – although not pets. “We are now doing private commissions,” says Beckwith, “and we are getting lots of interest from my friends who are men who have beautiful wives and children.”

 Read next: President of Pace Gallery Marc Glimcher on making art for all

Beckwith is herself a collector of photography. She says she started collecting the likes of Terry O’Neill, Robert Doisneau and Horst P. Horst when she was young and adds that she was taken by Munday’s work because it was portraiture. “I don’t like anything abstract, it leaves me cold. Even if I go around a beautiful exhibition and someone is explaining to me how clever the artist was and how he was the first person to paint something like this, I’m like, really?”

Munday’s 2017 portrait (made with Willy Camden) of actress Angelina Jolie has been used in a Guerlain fragrance campaign

As well as her evident passion for portraiture, Beckwith will also bring her formidable contact book to bear on the project. Munday will not be producing many private commissions –they will be for just the right people. Beckwith, who also runs a society charity event every year in aid of the Gynaecological Cancer Fund, knows exactly who they are.

Rob Munday is represented by The Little Black Gallery, thelittleblackgallery.com

Grayson Perry, Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London. Photograph: Robert Glowacki.

British artist Grayson Perry refers to himself as a “communicator”, one who is aiming to “communicate to as wide an audience as possible”, which means, at this time, bridging the gap in Britain between a divided society. As such, the centrepiece of “The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!”, at the Serpentine Gallery, are the Brexit pots (provocatively titled “The Matching Pair”), which were created with the help of the British public who were invited, through social media, to contribute ideas, images and phrases. From across the room, these huge blue vases look remarkably similar; look closer and the images reveal not only two opposing view-points, but the artist’s own political sway. The Leave pot has Nigel Farage, Big Ben, Winston Churchill and ketchup, whilst the Remain pot is a collage of romance and literature, with a portrait of Shakespeare and kissing couples.

‘King of Nowhere’, 2015, Cast iron and mixed media, Photography: Stephen White.

Elsewhere, Grayson pokes fun at fat cat art collectors with one liner quips scrawled across his ceramics, such as “flat whites against racism”, and “luxury brands for social justice”. The bronze sculptures are perhaps the most striking, delving deep into the modern psyche and issues of identity: “King of Nowhere” is a wide legged, cap-wearing drunk with scissors and knifes plunged into his skin, surrounded by miniature bottles of whisky. It’s an overwhelming and chaotic insight into Grayson’s mind, a whirlwind of contrasting words and images that confront the viewer from even the most mundane of objects. Amusing on the surface with ominously aggressive undertones, it seems to me, to be a fairly accurate reflection of the current state of British society.

Millie Walton

“Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!” runs until 10th September 2017 at The Serpentine Gallery, London