Interview

CATTELAN: In the long run, he was more revolutionary than a lot of artists who were openly championing the very same values that he was incorporating into his work. In Warhol’s work, serial repetition acts as a depowering or destabilizing force. He knew that believing in art as a society-changing weapon can be detrimental. There must be more to it than that. It has to be sensual, or witty, or visually appealing. The worst possible thing is when ideological art becomes didactic. What you get as a result is little more than propaganda—and then it doesn’t matter which side of the barricade you’re on.

ROBECCHI: How about your sculptures of John Fitzgerald Kennedy [Now, 2004] or Adolf Hitler [Him, 2001]? Aren’t these works plainly political?

CATTELAN: What I’m interested in are images. I’m sure you can tell. Who in his right mind would deliberately represent the pope struck by a meteorite in order to deliver a political message about the church? Or a hooded kid nailed to a school desk? It takes a very deviated and imaginative mind—say, Roger Waters in his The Wall period—to conceive something like that as a critique of the educational system.

ROBECCHI: And Lullaby [1994], the bags containing rubble from the bombing that struck the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan and killed five people? Wouldn’t you characterize that as a strong political statement?

CATTELAN: It got out of control. That piece was for a solo show in London—my first exhibition outside Italy, as a matter of fact. My initial idea was to present it like a snapshot of a determinate time, a modern postcard from Italy, if you like. It attracted a lot of criticism from the press, mostly because I was accused of airing the country’s dirty laundry in public. I was particularly stung by one piece in a national newspaper. It was written by an artist, someone you would expect to have a higher degree of sensibility on the subject, but his views were as poor and reductive as a tabloid commentator’s. His biggest concern, it seemed, was the good reputation of contemporary art.

ROBECCHI: He was probably thinking that your work was about being provocative or simply trying to cause a scandal.

CATTELAN: There are times when being scandalous or provocative can help bring focus to issues of major concern.

ROBECCHI: This year is the 100th anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto. Many people consider futurism and surrealism as the ultimate art movements that made a genuine attempt to change society. Both movements were masters at provocation. Where do you think they failed?

CATTELAN: Did they really fail? I think they are still very relevant today. Surrealism, and also dadaism, were pure gold. Maybe they got a bit carried away. Futurists were fundamentally fanatics, but I acknowledge that, in their madness, they anticipated a lot of what is going on today. Their blind faith in progress presents a lot of resemblances to all those people who are advocating a change through extreme ideology. What I find really funny is that futurists would be allergic to all these commemorative exhibitions that museums and curators are throwing for them. It is precisely what they were fighting against. The best way to honor their heritage would be to do something a little more outrageous and out of control than caging their art in a museum.

ROBECCHI: Many think that their supporting the war was their epitaph.

CATTELAN: Yes, but their concept of war was different from the one we have today. If you think about it, World War II was the first time in history where civilian casualties were more numerous than the military’s. Historically it was a massive turning point. It possibly set the model for all the wars we are witnessing today. The futurists were fantasizing about airplanes and missiles, but I don’t think they were fully aware of the implications. Their actual idea of war was very naïve and old-fashioned.

ROBECCHI: Right—horses and steel.

CATTELAN: Exactly. The people who were running it were total Evelyn Waugh characters. Nothing like what you would see today. War, like everything else, has become much more professional.

ROBECCHI: So you don’t think we are about to witness something similar to what happened in the 1930s?

CATTELAN: I don’t think the two decades are comparable. I don’t see the current crisis degenerating into a proliferation of totalitarian regimes. The crash of 1929 was a first. Unlike the current crisis, which was a long time coming, it was totally unpredictable. Nobody knew what was going to happen. Today we know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how long it takes to walk through. All we need are exceptionally inspired people to set an example and guide us through the dark.

ROBECCHI: How do you perceive the wave of optimism following Barack Obama’s election running parallel to this fear of the crisis?

CATTELAN: It’s certainly an event of historical proportions, although a part of me can’t help thinking that we’ve all been mesmerized, that what is happening is the result of a mass hallucinatory phenomenon, and that, sooner or later, something dramatic is going to happen. I suppose it’s the pessimist in me. But if I should make an effort and be an optimist, I see Obama’s win as proof of what we were just talking about. It’s a return to more ideological values.

ROBECCHI: There are massive expectations.

CATTELAN: Yes. It seems like the whole world is lining up outside the White House holding bread and fish, waiting for him to perform a miracle. In a way, it’s a bit scary. But, at the same time, it’s kind of exciting, too. It makes you look forward to the future. You don’t get the opportunity to do that very often these days!

Michele Robecchi is a writer and curatorbased in London. He is also a contemporary-art editorat Phaidon Press, and a visiting lecturer at Christie’s Education.