*1960, Padova. Lives in Milan.
Photographic Documentation and Archive of Manifesta 2:
Roman Mensing, Münster
Untitled, 1998 (installation)
Within the framework of the exhibition, Maurizio Cattelan's monumental installation seeks to provoke a moment of surprise. This is achieved by transporting a fragment of Italy to Luxembourg, namely an olive-tree trailing a cube of earth in its roots. The artist is mainly concerned with the extraction of a cube of reality and its transference, but also intends to explore the possibilities given to sculpture thirty years after the Arte Povera movement and Joseph Beuys. While Beuys, in his action called "1000 Eichen" ("1000 Oaks") performed at the "Documenta VII" in Kassel in 1982, argued in favour of the ideology corresponding to the significance and the aim of his artistic efforts, Maurizio Cattelan, a typical artist of his generation, abandons all ideology in favour of a lapidary and nihilist use of the world's banality.
Casino Luxembourg
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