Maurizio Cattelan: Breath Ghosts Blind

Pirelli HangarBicocca presents the solo exhibition Breath Ghosts Blind by Maurizio Cattelan, one of the world’s most renowned figures of the contemporary art scene. Curated by Roberta Tenconi and Vicente Todolí, the show is conceived as a solemn dramaturgy in three acts following the spaces of the Milanese institution. The narrative unfolds around the artworks that compose the exhibition title–Breath, Ghosts, and Blind–which together allude to a symbolical journey from birth to death, recreating the cycle of life.

The exhibition opens in the Piazza space with the sculpture Breath (2021). Depicting a man in a fetal position and a dog lying on the ground facing each other, the composition conveys a sense of affection and intimacy, in which the life-size scale of the figures resonates with the monumental architecture surrounding them. Made of white Carrara marble, quintessential material in ancient sculpture, the artwork gathers two figures sharing a vital function, “breathing,” as recalled in the title, which also constitutes a necessary generative moment, precondition to the existence of life.

The second act of the exhibition takes place in the Navate space with Ghosts (2021), a new version of a historic work. Originally presented at the 47th and 54th Venice Biennales with the titles Tourists (1997) and Others (2011) respectively, Ghosts features countless taxidermied pigeons, camouflaged in the architecture of the former industrial building. Their presence on the beams and in the nooks of the traveling crane becomes visible only as the public walks through the space, generating a sense of estrangement and restlessness.

The third and final moment of the narration unfolds in the Cubo, gradually revealing itself to visitors arriving from the Navate. The installation Blind (2021) is the outcome of the artist’s ongoing reflection on history and the theme of death, here taking the form of a memorial distinguished by a destabilizing iconography. With this work Maurizio Cattelan appropriates and processes an image that has become part of the shared iconographic repertoire—the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11—and transfigures it into a symbol of collective loss and pain. Made of black resin and composed of a monolith intersected by the silhouette of an airplane, Blind combines figuration and abstraction to transform a violent event in recent history into a moment of encounter.

Set in a somber and solemn context, Breath Ghosts Blind offers visitors an immersive and emotional experience through the most meaningful aspects of human life, conveying contrasting feelings, from grief to love, while evoking some of the most significant motifs explored by the artist over his 30-year-long career.

Maurizio Cattelan
Maurizio Cattelan (Padua, 1960) lives between Milan and New York. His projects and solo exhibitions have been presented in Italian and international institutions, including Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, UK (2019); Monnaie de Paris (2016); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016 and 2011); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel (2013); Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (2012); Palazzo Reale, Milan, The Menil Collection, Houston, Deste Foundation Project Space, Hydra, Greece (2010); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2008); MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2007); Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento, Italy (2004); MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2003); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2002).

Cattelan has also participated in major group exhibitions, including the Yokohama Triennale (2017 and 2001); Venice Biennale (2011, 2009, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1997 and 1993); Gwangju Biennale (2010); Biennale of Sydney (2008); Whitney Biennial, New York, Seville Biennial (2004); Lyon Biennale (2003); Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997).

A finalist of the Guggenheim Hugo Boss Prize (2000), Maurizio Cattelan has received the Rome Quadriennale Prize (2009), the Arnold-Bode Prize, Kassel (2005), the honorary degree in Sociology from the Università degli Studi di Trento (2004) and the title of Honorary Professor in Sculpture from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara (2018).

The exhibition catalogue
The exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca will be accompanied by a publication released together with Marsilio Editori. The volume will include essays by Francesco Bonami and Nancy Spector, with a conversation between the artist and the exhibition curators Roberta Tenconi and Vicente Todolí. The monograph is enriched by contributions dealing with the issues raised in the show, through the voices of philosophers, theologians and writers such as Arnon Grunberg, Andrea Pinotti and Timothy Verdon. The catalogue also contains an extensive photographic documentation of the works on display and a selection of texts, republished and translated for the occasion, by the philosopher and writer Susan Sontag (1933–2004), the intellectual and translator Giustina Renier Michiel (1755–1832) and by the Kurdish-Syrian poet and writer Golan Haji.

A second publication—Index Conversations Maurizio Cattelan—will follow in autumn, also realized in close collaboration with the artist and Marsilio Editori. For the very first time a single volume of more than 500 pages will gather over one hundred interviews conducted by Maurizio Cattelan to other artists, thinkers and creative figures in the past twenty years, from 2001 until today.