My tutor at University suggested that it would be good for me to view an artist whose work is very different from mine so I decided to go and see the last day of Maurizio Catellan's exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. As I entered the gallery I noticed straight away that there was more of an Italian crowd then a British crowd going around the gallery.
The first art work I saw was the 'Bel Paese' piece which was composed of a green rug showing the Bel Paese Italy as in the cheese with the same name by Galbani. The opposition of the word Bel Paese=Beautiful Country & the image of Italy on the rug gave clearly out that there is hypocrisy behind the image of the Bel Paese. The funny thing is that the supposedly 'Beautiful Country' Bel Paese shown as a rug where one can clean one shoes but is not allowed to do so as the rug was cordoned of which made me laugh: a rug which one can not use.. meaning that the rug is still a work of art worth money and worth of cordoning off. I am not sure if this is a mistake of the curator or if the artist intentionally asked for his work to be cordoned off because if this is the case he is actually giving less meaning to the work. By having it cordoned off he is actually showing his work more as a property with value then anything else which weakens the content of the work or creates a distance with the viewer. As a viewer I was allowed to look at the piece but I felt kept in my place by the way it was displayed as I or indeed other viewers couldn't clean our shoes on the rug if we wanted to. Yes they have put a Roman hand hanging from the sealing above showing the middle finger at the rug but I felt it was better if one could actually clean one shoes on the rug as I think originally intended.
While the piece Lullaby made out of rubble in a large sack, one could touch this piece as I saw a blind man doing so, but would someone who is not Italian know that they are the remains of the PAC in Via Palestro in 1993 where 6 people died due to a bomb by the Mafia? Hiding the rubble in a sack made me think of the hiding of a trauma, feeling uncomfortable with Italy's troubled past.
There are common elements in his work one for example is Maurizio Cattelan's troubled relationship with some of Italy's dark episodes but also showing them to people who might not know about those episodes highlighting injustice and hypocrisy in the system and in society or in art. The other work I soon noticed called Bidibidobididiboo made out of a red squirrel slumped on a small table with a gun on the floor all in miniature gave me the impression because of the small size of the piece that I was intruding into a story: that of the artist as a young man stuck in boring daily routine this was given out by the sink and table, I felt that the artist hates ordinary life and has a need to shock to feel alive if not he is like a trapped defenceless red squirrel in an environment which doesn't belong to him kitchen, sink, table are not really a squirrel environment but ordinary symbols of a common life...To me the red squirrel being an outdoor animal represents the wilderness of the artist that wants to get out but gets killed by domesticity hence the squirrel shot in a home environment. Looking at his work it looks not only funny thanks to the just apposition of opposite elements but well thought out as everything is well positioned, staged and that he likes to get a reaction from the viewer. I mean he used a real cute red squirrel not an ugly wounded or maybe a fake one which made the viewer (myself in this case) feel sympathy for the cute squirrel/the artist so for the whole piece.
There are common elements in his work one for example is Maurizio Cattelan's troubled relationship with some of Italy's dark episodes but also showing them to people who might not know about those episodes highlighting injustice and hypocrisy in the system and in society or in art. The other work I soon noticed called Bidibidobididiboo made out of a red squirrel slumped on a small table with a gun on the floor all in miniature gave me the impression because of the small size of the piece that I was intruding into a story: that of the artist as a young man stuck in boring daily routine this was given out by the sink and table, I felt that the artist hates ordinary life and has a need to shock to feel alive if not he is like a trapped defenceless red squirrel in an environment which doesn't belong to him kitchen, sink, table are not really a squirrel environment but ordinary symbols of a common life...To me the red squirrel being an outdoor animal represents the wilderness of the artist that wants to get out but gets killed by domesticity hence the squirrel shot in a home environment. Looking at his work it looks not only funny thanks to the just apposition of opposite elements but well thought out as everything is well positioned, staged and that he likes to get a reaction from the viewer. I mean he used a real cute red squirrel not an ugly wounded or maybe a fake one which made the viewer (myself in this case) feel sympathy for the cute squirrel/the artist so for the whole piece.
I did wonder where the squirrel got sourced from and why did the gallery or the artist didn't care to mention this? Did he found him already dead or was the squirrel killed to appear especially in the exhibition? Just because he is a squirrel and not a human does it mean an artist can do what they like with it? If it was a human someone would make a claim for the body don't animals have any rights because they don't have a voice? I felt this was the strongest piece in the gallery anyhow.
The other piece with absurd upside down elements was the one with artist himself as a still puppet hanging from a metallic hanger closet wearing no shoes which is an out of place image so the intrinsic absurdity if it and the funny element in it. The puppet of the artist is wearing a woollen or felt grey suit which easily gave away the other artist Joseph Beuys. Don't think Cattelan is keen on idealists artist that want to change society or the artist that present himself as the Savior of society as Beuys represents that's why is hanged in a still frame position to make fun out of it as it can't move to reach the ground, doesn't have shoes. Cattelan represent himself in some of his art work with sometimes an ambivalent meaning open to interpretations as there isn't much description about the art work so it leaves it open to interpretation this goes together with other themes across his work such as shock, absurdity, death, authority & humour.
Maurizio Cattelan BidibidoBidiDiboo 1996
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