and dedicated their time and expertise to realize it so successfully in our space. I am especially indebted to Katherine Brinson, Assistant Curator, who managed all aspects of this exhibition and publication. Her devotion to the project, natural curatorial instincts, and utmost professionalism were essential to the success of this undertaking. She was ably assisted by Susan Thompson, Curatorial Assistant, who provided essential support. Curatorial interns Eric Booker, Chloe Capewell, Emily Carr, Adam Hines-Green, Jaime Schwartz, and Alison Wender conducted much of the research for the catalogue’s back matter, and for this I am most grateful.
An exhibition of this scale and complexity could not have happened without the sustained support of Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, who has been a constant source of encouragement. Initial discussions about the exhibition were held during Lisa Dennison’s tenure as Director of the Guggenheim Museum, and I thank her for her early faith in this project. Jessica Ludwig, Managing Director of Exhibition Management, skillfully and gracefully supervised the logistical details, from the budget to the coordination of all departments involved in the installation, aided by the expertise of Jason Phoel, Financial Analyst. Maria Paula Armelin, Associate Registrar for Exhibitions, ably coordinated the intricate details of transporting the works in the exhibition. Eliza Stoner, Assistant Registrar for Collections and Exhibitions, provided essential support in this area. Jaime Roark, Senior Exhibition Designer, offered inestimable technical and aesthetic expertise on how best to achieve the artist’s concept. The unparalleled installation team, comprising David Bufano, Director of Art Services and Preparation; Derek Deluco, Exhibition Technician; Christopher George, Chief Fabricator; Richard Avery, Technical and Production Specialist, Fabrications; Doug Hollingsworth, Chief Cabinetmaker; Barry Hylton, Senior Manager, Exhibition Installations; and Peter Read, Director of Fabrication, worked diligently to create this engineering feat of an installation. I am continually inspired by their amazing skills and their dedication to the museum. Nathan Otterson, Conservator, Objects, provided important oversight throughout the installation process to ensure the long-term safety of the works on view, aided by the valuable contributions of Julie Barten, Senior Conservator of Collections and Exhibitions; Jeffrey Warda, Associate Conservator, Paper; and Esther Chao, Assistant Conservator, Objects, under the guidance of Carol Stringari, Deputy Director and Chief Conservator. Mary Ann Hoag, Chief of Lighting Design, worked adeptly with the artist to properly illuminate his site-specific installation. Maria Celi, Managing Director of Visitor Services and Retail Operations, embraced this unusual project with characteristic zeal.
My sincere gratitude is due to the Guggenheim’s talented Publications Department, in particular Elizabeth Levy, Director of Publications and Website, who oversaw the creation of this catalogue with unfailing grace and dedication, adeptly supported by Elizabeth Franzen, Associate Director of Publications, Editorial, and Stephen Hoban, Managing Editor. Melissa Secondino, Associate Director of Publications, Production; Minjee Cho, Associate Production Manager; and Suzana Greene, Production Associate, expertly shepherded the catalogue through the production process. Kamilah Foreman, Associate Editor, and Project Editor for the catalogue, coordinated all aspects of both the English and Italian editions with meticulous attention to detail, while Domenick Ammirati, Senior Editor, ably edited my essay, and Helena Winston, former Associate Editor, carefully and systematically edited the exhibition history and bibliography.
Domenick Ammirati; Kamilah Foreman; Suzana Greene; Laura Kleger, Associate Director, Website; Jennifer Otten, Senior Interactive Designer; and Maria Slusarev, Website Project Manager, supervised by Elizabeth Levy, produced the multimedia app developed for the project with enthusiasm and efficiency. Our warmest thanks are also due to the individuals who contributed richly informative interviews for the app: Vince Aletti, Francesco Bonami, Nicolas Bourriaud, Fabio Cavallucci, Germano Celant, Bice Curiger, Massimo De Carlo, Tom Eccles, David Ganek, Ida Gianelli, Massimiliano Gioni, Marian Goodman, Jens Hoffmann, Carsten Höller, Laura Hoptman, Chrissie Iles, Udo Kittelmann, Andrew Kreps, Paola Manfrin, Emmanuel Perrotin, Anda Rottenberg, Beatrix Ruf, Ali Subotnick, and Rein Wolfs.
Marcia Fardella, Director of Graphic Design and Chief Graphic Designer, carefully created the brochure accompanying the exhibition, with beautiful drawings supplied by Pierpaolo Ferrari. David Heald, Director of Photographic Services and Chief Photographer, assisted by Kristopher McKay, Assistant Photographer and Digital Imaging Specialist, provided images for the catalogue and documentation of the exhibition preparations for the app.
Christina Yang, Associate Director of Education, Public Programs; Rachel Sirota, Manager of Public Programs; and Sharon Vatsky, Associate Director of Education, School and Family Programs, helped create a rich menu of programs to accompany the exhibition. We are grateful to Michael P. Lavin, Theater Director, for ensuring that all public programming would be successfully presented. Helen Warwick, former Executive Director of Individual Development, helped establish this exhibition’s Leadership Committee, which provided essential funding for the project, and thanks are also due to John L. Wielk, Deputy Director, Corporate and Institutional Development; Bronwyn Keenan, Director of Special Events; and their teams. Marianna Horton, Assistant General Counsel, compiled all the contractual agreements pertaining to the exhibition.
In External Affairs, we collaborated closely with Eleanor R. Goldhar, Deputy Director and Chief of Global Communications; Betsy Ennis, Director of Media and Public Relations, and Lauren Van Natten, Senior Publicist; as well as Laura Miller, Director of Marketing, and her staff.
Lastly, and again, I must thank Maurizio Cattelan for his profoundly serious art, which, at first glance, may seem humorous, but in the end, will make you cry. This contradiction is at the heart of his work and thus forms the very core of his Guggenheim presentation, Maurizio Cattelan: All.
Nancy Spector
Deputy Director and Chief Curator
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
fig. 1 Untitled, 2001
prologue
WHAT artists read is often a good indication of what they are thinking, if not their sources of inspiration. A well-stocked bookshelf in the corner of a studio can be as revealing as any explication of a specific work in progress. This rings especially true for Maurizio Cattelan, who rarely divulges his intentions, preferring instead to hide behind a perfectly crafted persona of class clown or inveterate juvenile delinquent. His selections for the Artist’s Choice section of the first comprehensive monograph on his work, published in 2000, are, therefore, especially valuable clues.1 With an exceptionally salacious excerpt from Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth’s brilliant caricature of male Jewish-American angst, followed by extracts from a book of collected suicide notes, Cattelan obliquely conveys the key motivating impulses behind his practice: desperation and guilt.2 After failing, Cattelan claims, at all prior pursuits from the academic to the professional, he approached the art world as a kind of refuge, a place where he could rehearse his anxieties publicly and be rewarded for doing so. Like Alexander Portnoy in Roth’s novel, Cattelan is perpetually searching for an escape from himself, his past, and all rules imposed on him. The long-suffering Portnoy turned to psychoanalysis to overcome the suffocating embrace of his overprotective parents and to understand if not absolve his untoward desires. For Cattelan, the art world is the analyst’s couch. Since the beginnings of his career as an artist during the late 1980s, he has freely enacted his vulnerabilities, giving them physical form and a distinct narrative, one that, in many ways, has come to define his work as a whole.
But this is only one side of the story. Cattelan’s compelling performance of his own psychopathology is less autobiographical in origin than it is a poetic gesture toward universality. By playing the (neurotic) fool, he offers himself up as an Everyman, suggesting that this archetypal figure
