Top 62 Quotes & Sayings by Maurizio Cattelan
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Art is about forgetting all these feelings, good and bad, and trying to understand what acts will last longer, which symbols will remain in history. It's a question of perspective: The further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems.
Damien Hirst knows how to drive super-fast cars... I love my bicycle.
Gianni Agnelli was a sharp mind, and most of his interviews carried meanings between the lines that only now are fully readable.
It's not my job to tell people what a work means.
I produce so little that the works have to be editioned. Otherwise, I don't survive. Also, editioning is relevant for communication. If you make three new works, it means that nine objects are available. Three people talking about your work is fine, but nine makes a difference.
I'm terrorized by a fear of failure. Failure is always there.
I never tried to make money - just enough to be able to eat.
If you are searching to figure out what is true and what is not, you will have a sad life. It means you have too much time, and you should do a hobby - like collecting art.
Made in Catteland is a project that aims to overcome the boundaries of the work of art as we're used to thinking of it: exploring new possibilities of reaching the audience through the creation of new forms of art.
I don't like the idea of having a public image. In the end, you have an image of someone, which becomes true whether it is or not.
I am fascinated by the idea of employing beautiful images as a device to convey something extremely disturbing in an apparently harmless way.
I think that laughter and death are closely related: comedy is the quintessential human reaction to the fear of death. It's probably linked with the fact that we are the only animals who know we must die.
I am not an artist.
From my point of view, humour and irony include tragedy; they're two sides of the same coin.
Every work of art is a great promise of escape and, therefore, like an open invitation.
Warhol was proof that you can be revolutionary without being militant.
Laughter is a Trojan horse to enter into direct contact with the unconscious, strike the imagination, and trigger visceral reactions.
Art fairs are a lot like professional proms - you make contacts, have a lot to look at, and in some cases, you make friends forever. I think that for artists, they can be a bit controversial: they stimulate curiosity, but at the same time, you're always trying to not have your work hung on a wall.
Based on my experience, it's considerably difficult to force a donkey into doing something it perceives to be dangerous for whatever reason.
I find Instagram interesting to the extent that new royal families are born and die there, such as The Kardashians of L.A.
The best art is on the street.
I would never make fun of anyone who is obviously disabled who cannot defend himself, like Donald Trump.
What's the point of our life? Everything seems absurd until we die, and then it makes sense.
When I was very young, I had to start to working to help my family, while my friends were studying. Since then, I have felt the urgency to escape from every dependency situation.
Money is a bad friend. Don't ever do anything for money.
Contemporary art will never achieve the audience of football, pop music, or television, so I think we should stop comparing its possible area of influence to that of big mass-media events.
There are times when being scandalous or provocative can help bring focus to issues of major concern.
Rules are simply obstacles to be jumped, like in a horse race: higher and higher every time.
I would describe myself as a tallish, shy, middle-aged man who equally loves his work and his freedom. And a good liar!
Work was always necessary to survive. Then I decided the goal should be to survive without working. But now I have much more work than I had before. Hunting for freedom, I've found the real prison. but at least it's a prison I've chosen for myself.
I have become an employee of art.
Some do design in order to try to solve others' problems, while others make art in order to give others his problems.
Sometimes I see myself as a locked box - very detached from myself and others. But I feel lucky, because I am the owner of my time, and you cannot buy time.
Sooner or later, all magazines end up in the toilet.
It's even more of a torture not to work than to work.
I get up in the morning and get to bed at night, and between, I bring equivalent dedication to everything I do, with a horror of the inaccurate and the half-baked.
Provocations are like a Molotov cocktail. They only work one time out of ten, but when it works, it can also be dangerous for the arm that is throwing it. It's the price that has to be paid.
I won't say I'm not fascinated by the way advertising works. I like the sleekness. But a picture in advertising doesn't last too long. They have to work for 30 seconds. And I'd like to reach at least two minutes. This is my goal: to break that two-minute record.
When you place art in the shops, it's a way to make it more accessible.
You don't wanna see your work, because you might find out that you do not like it.
I never talk about my work as a joke.
Stuffed animals are sad and scary; they have humorous and tragic qualities.
Art should be able to be innovative without compromising itself. That's why I believe artists should have bigger preoccupations than checking the price tags on their work or becoming curators' darlings.
If you are a plumber, there is an objective way to establish whether you put together a great piping system or not. Art is a bit more slippery than that.
I work more with my stomach than my brain.
I was jealous of colleagues when I should have been happy for them. I decided to save my energy. If you think they are great works, you should buy them.
Every morning, we choose between milk or tea or coffee. Usually, I know what I like, but I don't rule out changing my idea sometimes. The editing process is one of the most important parts in everyday life. The same is with my work: mistakes are part of the decision-making process.
I like to produce work for specific places, and it is difficult to do repeat shows in the same space.
My aim is to be as open and as incomprehensible as possible. There has to be a perfect balance between open and shut.
Never give an artist like me carte blanche: he would think it's simply toilet paper.
I tend not to work with a specific person in mind. Art is a matter of statistics. It's not about individuals. It's about people.
I do not know exactly why, but it seems to me that images do not belong to anybody but are instead there, at the disposal of all.
I was a loser, most concerned with making a living. It took me 30 years to understand... I had to reinvent a system, find a way out, and set some rules that could work for me and a few others. I guess in the end that's what we all are trying to do.
The current climate doesn't represent a threat to the production of art but to the market. I think it's time for artists to get over auction houses, galleries, and high-production-value exhibitions and start using our voices again.
I'm criticizing the way they are perceived. I was going through a book of Marina Abramovic and Ulay's 1970s performance work the other day. These people did two, even three Documentas or Venice Biennales over the course of a decade without any fuss. They would just treat it as any of their other engagements, with the same level of dignity and commitment they'd reserve for a one-day event in a small gallery on the Austrian mountains.
It's in our nature. If you are a plumber, there is an objective way to establish whether you put together a great piping system or not. Art is a bit more slippery than that. So, when you fill a gallery with dirt and someone comes along waving wads of bills, it's difficult not to take them because they become a tangible acknowledgement that what you've been doing actually makes sense.
I don't design. I don't paint. I absolutely never touch my works.
My ideas are all the same but look different.
The market is like a machine that needs to be constantly excited. It needs to constantly produce wealth and more excitement. There are some leading players who are always there before everyone else, and they set market trends, they make people safe about the excitement. Of course, those who buy it first are the first to drop it. It's an ongoing game.
Part of the blame can be put at the artists' door, too - no question. But I see our involvement more as a consequence. When there is too much money at stake, the whole system gets corrupted. Artists can be very vulnerable to these mechanisms.
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