Shipping between 26 Feb - 21 June
Ten years after Not Afraid of Love marked Maurizio Cattelan’s triumphant return to the art world, the sculpture that gave the exhibition its name is editioned for the first time.
Originally created in 2000, Not Afraid of Love depicts a giant elephant concealed beneath a white sheet with two eye-holes. In 2016, the work lent its title to Cattelan’s major exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris, five years after he boldly announced his retirement from the art world following his 2011 retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Playing on the expression “elephant in the room”, the work turns an imposing creature into an absurd and vulnerable figure in hiding – a characteristically on-the-nose joke that, with disarming simplicity, opens onto a near-endless range of interpretations.
Each sculpture is hand-painted, individually numbered and accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. This edition is paired with Novecento, and part of a wider series of sculpture editions, including We Are the Revolution and La Nona Ora
While Comedian (2019) – an ordinary banana duct-taped to a wall – has captured mainstream attention for years, it’s not the first time it seemed like Maurizio was playing a joke on the world. For example, L.O.V.E (2010), an 11m marble hand with four digits missing – leaving only a middle finger outside the Italian Stock Exchange in Milan. Is it a response to the fascist history of the square, or the 2008 financial crisis? Is it a postmodern comment on the emptiness of gestures, or just a really good joke? Any single answer would be unsatisfactory. To Maurizio, “if something can be reduced to one clear concept, it is as sure as hell artistically dead.” Only one thing unifies this sprawling, sardonic oeuvre – the figure of Maurizio the Artist. Or is that just another Mini-Me (1999)?
