Cattelan as master of ceremonies

Metz (Moselle). Maurizio Cattelan, cantor of irreverence or wolf of the market, invited to a celebration with great fanfare, introduced into the reserves of the museum. It is at the very least intriguing. It is not known beforehand what this free -free time beach means perpetuity announced by the title, “endless Sunday”.

Ambivalence, polysemy is part of the proposal, which does not impose anything a priori. And even whose heads of chapters obey only rather whimsical ways to the cuffs that they are supposed to respect. The seventh day of the week is also Sunday (2024), a huge wall sculpture which appears in the course and was presented by Gagosian in New York during the first solo of Maurizio Cattelan in a sales gallery for more than twenty years. The work takes the form of a gold plated panel, riddled with bullet impacts. The visitor inevitably meets his reflection in the shimmering memory of this shooting, which however lends itself quite pain to selfies, it is the trap.

The exercise therefore consisted for the artist in designing a course from the collections of a museum; He already did it a few months ago at Moderna Museet, in Stockholm (Sweden). Maurizio Cattelan says that the device, articulated around six rooms, was however much less complex. In Metz, the exhibition has 26 sections, bringing together nearly forty of its own pieces and more than 300 from the National Museum of Modern Art. Exhibition-Fleuire, during which one is not bored for a second. The course includes its share of masterpieces (for example the sumptuous Bullier ball (1913) by Sonia Delaunay), fetish (like the chess table of Marcel Duchamp shown for the first time, or the “workshop wall” [1922-1966] of André Breton next to the bas-relief Gradiva [Musées du Vatican]), and exhumed finds – such as this Portrait in a mirror (1912) by Oswald Birley, incredibly contemporary.

From the start of the course, the visitor is struck by his theatricality, underlined by the Cinema window of George Segal (Movie House1966-1967), but also by the spectacular presence of Felix [voir ill.]a chat skeleton with dinosaur dimensions. The hanging plays on scale relationships, alternating from one space to the other of various formats and inviting to look in several directions: in height, where the circular carpet ofHe beautiful paese (1994), and at the level of the plinths for miniature elevators Untitled (2001), works by Cattelan. While the virtuoso scenography (signed Berger & Berger) opens up perspectives from one room to another: the parasol canvas profile of Self-portrait (Sunbrella), 2014, by Alex Israel stems for example in the door which leads to the second room. This kaleidoscopic principle makes the journey dynamic and stimulating. Without this choice being the subject of a manifesto, we note that the paintings of three women’s artists, Miriam Cahn, Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell (Sylvie’s Sunday1976) are placed at the start of the course. Women are also summoned in the texts of part of the exhibition cartels, written by the prisoners of the Giudecca prison in Venice. In 2024, the place had welcomed the exhibition of the Vatican pavilion (60th Biennale) whose police station was provided by Chiara Parisi and Bruno Racine. We had already seen Fat (2021), large black and white wall painting of Cattelan representing the soles of the feet of an elderly man, an image referring to both a vision of morgue and a Sunday nap.

A room dedicated to her mother’s portraits

Because “an endless Sunday” is also, and above all, an exhibition by Maurizio Cattelan. Where we realize that outside of iconic works that mark his career (like sculpture Love [2010] In the erect index placed in the forum, the horses embedded from Kaputt [2013,]the tricycle driver with his image of Charlie [2003]), we do not know his conceptual work so well, in particular certain sculptures such as Envy (2025), nail stuck in a Marmorean drape. And then, the artist indulges here as he had probably never done. Through his selection, which testifies to his fine knowledge of the history of art and its curiosity. But also in the texts he has written for the occasion, whose very personal tone is often dark. In the room dedicated to “Portraits of the artist’s mother”, Cattelan placed that of his, in his image, seated in a crazy fridge, the gaze imbued with a slight reproach. The chilling incongruity of this maternal appearance suggests that his childhood was not always simple. Evokes him “An irrespirable atmosphere”.

We find his texts in the catalog laid on by the graphic designer Irma Boom. The book proudly displays the banana tape of COMEDIAN. In the exhibition, the controversial work occupies an entire room, like a relic (scandal) placed in an alcove. Sale for sale for 100,000 dollars on the stand of the Perrotin gallery in Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019, the banana barred with a silver adhesive has unleashed specions, up to being sold for more than $ 6 million at Sotheby’s. Once made public, the work no longer belongs to the artist, who only keeps his stubborn feeling of imposture for him. But here the masterful demonstration of his formidable talent.