MAURIZIO CATTELAN
Slaughterhouse, DESTE Foundation Project Space, Hydra

In 2009 the DESTE Foundation inaugurated a project space on the island of Hydra in the Saronic Gulf, with Blood of Two, a joint collaboration between Matthew Barney & Elizabeth Peyton. Located in the island’s former slaughterhouse, DESTE’s Project Space provides a hyper-charged, unusual exhibition environment where site-specific presentations, special interventions and focused displays of individual artworks take place.

This year the Slaughterhouse hosts the European premiere of Maurizio Cattelan’s WE, a new sculptural gesture by
the irreverent Italian artist. Continuing the artist’s infatuation with funerary iconography, Cattelan’s new work is a
mysterious self-portrait which, when installed in the Slaughterhouse space, takes on an even more disturbing
character.

The double, the doppelganger, the look-alike occupy a central place in the work of Maurizio Cattelan - his work is populated by an army of puppets wearing the artist’s features as a mask.

It is an exploded ego that Maurizio Cattelan describes, but one which seems to be enjoying his symptoms: a happy schizophrenic – if there is such thing – who embraces the endless possibilities offered by his multiple personalities.

Staring at We, one can not help thinking of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the two philosophers who have sung
the ebullient dissolution of the self. One is also reminded of Henri Fuseli’s painting The Nightmare, a disturbing bed room drama in which a monster visits the dreams of a scantly dressed sleeping beauty. Or perhaps We is a portrait
of the artist as he faces the specter of his own self – a pure Alighiero Boetti moment.

No longer a young man – or a young dog as Dylan Thomas would have it – Cattelan represents himself as caught in an argument with Maurizio. It’s perfect material for a midlife crisis plot – a Woody Allen classic, with the usual share
of Freudian subtexts. But there is also something vaguely religious in this double portrait: maybe it’s the clothes or
the pose of the bodies, that recall those of Christ on his death bed. Or maybe it is the bed itself with its austere
design and the wood that smells of churches and sacristies.

We is a deposition, an allegory of inaction – it is, after all, the first time Maurizio Cattelan has represented himself
in a passive role. That is perhaps what makes We more touching than simply humorous. With its diminutive scale
and installed as it is in the brutally simple architecture of the slaughterhouse, at the margin of town, We is a
sculpture you visit like an old friend at a hospital, with that same sense of familiarity, embarrassment and
fear.

– Massimiliano Gioni

On the occasion of Cattelan’s presentation at the Slaughterhouse, the DESTE Foundation also launches the first issue of Toilet Paper, a new magazine directed by Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. Following in the wake of Cattelan’s cult publication Permanent Food, Toilet Paper is a new generation magazine that combines commercial photography, twisted narratives and surrealistic imaginary to create a series of powerful visual
tableaux.

MAURIZIO CATTELAN
Slaughterhouse, DESTE Foundation Project Space, Hydra
Duration: To September 30
Visiting hours: Monday – Sunday, 11:00-13:00 & 19:00-22:00, Closed Tuesdays
www.deste.gr