Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back

An art world upstart, the provocative and elusive artist Maurizio Cattelan made his career on playful and subversive works that send up the artistic establishment, until a retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2011 finally solidified his place in the contemporary art canon. Axelrod's equally playful profile leaves no stone unturned in trying to figure out who Maurizio Cattelan is.
In 1999 Maurizio curated the 6th Caribbean Biennial: a "false" biennial without works of art, in which Cattelan offered ten chosen artists (Chris Ofili, Pipilotti Rist, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Olafur Eliasson and others) a week’s holiday on Saint Kitts, during which the participants were not allowed to make art or do any work. This resulted in great discomfort for both the artists and invited art patrons, who did not find any artworks waiting for them.

Introduction by Liina Siib