Maurizio Cattelan

On December 7, 2019, Comedian, an artwork created by Cattelan in an edition of three for the 2019 installment of Art Basel Miami Beach consisting of a banana held to a wall by duct tape, sold to an unnamed French art collector for $120,000 US. The fruit in the work was later summarily eaten by Georgian performance artist David Datuna, who called his piece Hungry Artist. Meanwhile Galerie Perrotin, which is exhibiting the piece, replaced the fruit and stated that it is an "idea", while Datuna said "it was very delicious". Emmanuel Perrotin was mostly just unimpressed by the lack of originality of the move, stating 'this kind of provocation is not new. If you remember, Duchamp's Fountain was famously pissed in almost a dozen times. If anything, it's quite mundane.'

In 2017, when the Trump administration White House requested the loan of a Vincent Van Gogh painting, from the Guggenheim collection, Landscape With Snow, the museum's chief curator Nancy Spector suggested instead Cattelan's work America, a sculpture of a gold toilet.

In 2016 the Monnaie de Paris his retrospective of his work titled Not Afraid of Love.

Cattelan was profiled on American television program 60 Minutes on the occasion of his retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2011. In 2016, a documentary about his life and work The Art World's Prankster: Maurizio Cattelan was broadcast on BBC.

In 2010, they founded the magazine Toiletpaper, a bi-annual, picture-based publication. As part of a public art series at the High Line in 2012, Toiletpaper was commissioned with a billboard at the corner of 10th Avenue and West 18th Street in New York, showing an image of a woman's manicured and jeweled fingers, detached from their hands, emerging from a vibrant blue velvet background. In 2014, Cattelan and Ferrari produced a fashion spread for the Spring Fashion issue of New York.

Cattelan was represented hanged with a noose around his neck in 2010 in the Vatican by the Sicilian artist Giuseppe Veneziano.

In 2009, Cattelan teamed up with Italian photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari to create an editorial for W magazine's Art Issue.

Cattelan was a finalist for the Guggenheim's Hugo Boss Prize in 2000, received an honorary degree in Sociology from the University of Trento, Italy. In 2004, he was awarded the Arnold Bode prize from the Kunstverein Kassel, Germany. A career prize (a gold medal) was awarded to Maurizio Cattelan by the 15th Rome Quadriennale. On 24 March 2009, at the MAXXI Museum of Rome, came to receive the prize, claiming to be the real Cattelan.

With long-term collaborators Ali Subotnick and Massimiliano Gioni, Cattelan also curated the 2006 Berlin Biennale. He frequently submitted articles to international publications such as Flash Art.

In 2002 he co-founded "The Wrong Gallery", a glass door leading to a 2.5 square foot exhibition space at 516A½ West 20th street in New York City. After the building housing the gallery was sold, the door and gallery was put on display within the collection of the Tate Modern until 2009.

In 1999 he started making life-size wax effigies of various subjects, including himself. One of his best known sculptures, La Nona Ora (1999) consists of an effigy of Pope John Paul II in full ceremonial costume being crushed by a meteor.

In 1999, he curated with Jens Hoffmann on the Caribbean Biennial.

From 1996–2007 Cattelan collaborated with Dominique Gonzalez-Foster and Paola Manfrin on the publication Permanent Food, an occasional journal consisting of a pastiche of pages torn from other magazines and submissions by artists of similar material. From 2002 he collaborated on the satirical arts journal Charley, a series on contemporary artists.

Cattelan has participated in the Venice Biennale (1993, 1997, 1999, and 2002), Manifesta 2 (1998), Luxembourg, Melbourne International Biennial 1999, and the 2004 Whitney Biennial in New York.

Cattelan is commonly noted for his use of taxidermy during the mid-1990s. Novecento (1997) consists of the taxidermied body of a former racehorse named Tiramisu, which hangs by a harness in an elongated, drooping posture. Another work utilizing taxidermy is Bidibidobidiboo (1996), a miniature depiction of a squirrel slumped over its kitchen table, a handgun at its feet.

Cattelan's first artwork has been noted as a photo art piece in 1989 entitled Lessico Familiare (Family Syntax), a framed self-portrait in which he is depicted forming a Hand Heart over his naked chest.

A major retrospective titled All, assembling 130 objects of Cattelan's career since 1989, opened in 2011 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. On the occasion of the exhibition, Cattelan announced his early retirement.

In the project entitled 1968, A Toiletpaper collaboration between Maurizio Cattelan, Pierpaolo Ferrari and the Deste Foundation in Athens, Cattelan celebrates the works and time of Dakis Joannou and his collection of radical design.

Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960) is an Italian artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him being frequently labelled as a joker or prankster of the art world. Self-taught as an artist, Cattelan has exhibited internationally in museums and Biennials. In 2011 the Guggenheim Museum, New York presented a retrospective of his work. Some of Cattelan's better-known works include America, consisting of a solid gold toilet; La Nona Ora, a sculpture depicting a fallen Pope who has been hit by a meteorite; and Comedian, a fresh banana duct-taped to a wall.

Cattelan was born on 21 September 1960 in Padua, Italy. He was raised there by his mother, a cleaning lady, and his father, a truck driver. He started his career in the early 1980s by designing and producing making wooden furniture in Forlì (Italy). Cattelan has no formal training in art. He has said that in addition to reading art catalogues, "making shows has been my school".