Gold and gunshots: Italian artist Cattelan’s latest satirical work is a golden wall riddled with bullets

NEW YORK — The first thing that catches your eye when arriving at the gallery that houses artist Maurizio Cattelan’s latest satirical work is the brightness. The brilliant shine of 64 panels coated in 24-karat gold – in all, a glittering wall 5.7 meters high and 20 meters wide.

The second is the marks on all that gold, created by more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition fired from six different weapons.

But the third impression is probably the most impressive: up close, you can see yourself reflected in the gold. And when you take a selfie, as many viewers have done over the last month, it looks like you yourself are full of bullet holes.

Wealth and luxury in America, pierced by the agony of gun violence. This is the explanation that most visitors take away Cattelan’s solo show, the first in more than two decades from a conceptual artist famous for a series of equally astonishing works. They include: A simple banana posted on the wall with tape that stole the show at Art Basel in Miami (and attracted so much attention that it had to be removed); a functional bathroom made of gold (which ended up being stolen); and an effigy of the Pope being felled by a meteorite.

But ask Cattelan himself to define his new work, titled “Sunday,” and the 63-year-old Italian is adamant about not pointing the finger at America. “We can’t be that specific,” he said in an interview, alongside his work. “In fact, it could be about any part of the world.” Asked to criticize the criticism, he slyly replied: “I believe in plurality. Whatever they say is fine.

The Gagosian gallery says the Cattelan show has been one of the most successful to date, with 14,000 visitors so far. Most viewers say their main emotion seems to be contradiction – of beauty and violence juxtaposed, leaving them confused about how to feel.

“It’s beautiful, but there’s also this kind of violence behind it, which is interesting because you’re not sure how to react to it,” said Brent Koskimaki, who recently visited from Calgary, Canada. “Because creation was a very violent thing, right? But now it’s so quiet and still here.”

He is certainly right that creation was uniquely violent. The artist supervised a session at a shooting range in Brooklyn, with professional gunsmiths firing two semi-automatic pistols, two semi-automatic rifles and two 12-gauge shotguns. The 64 panels were made in Italy from gold-plated stainless steel, are 3 millimeters thick and weigh more than 80 kilos.

Cattelan notes that the filming session could not have taken place in Italy. “Some of these weapons are only used by the army,” he says. Still, he says, all the gun professionals he encountered in the United States were ethical and professional, which seems to have surprised him. “They weren’t fanatics,” he said.

Adding to the flurry of contradictions is the accompanying fountain, carved from Carrara marble, which Cattelan placed facing the marked wall. Inspired by a deceased friend, it’s an image of a man curled up on a bench, urinating – with water coming out of, well, the obvious place.

Veronique Black, a friend of Koskimaki and his wife, Teresa, noted that the sad portrait of the man was in direct contrast to the beautiful brightness of the wall.

“To me, it’s beautiful and attractive,” Black, of Montreal, said of the wall. “So you want to get closer. You almost want to touch her. And then it’s a little repulsive to see the man peeing. So you’re attracted to something violent and turned away from something that is humanity. We should help each other…but you go towards the gold.

Teresa Koskimaki added, “I think that’s how society really is! We’re drawn to something that’s beautiful. But we also turn away from what’s going on in society and the suffering of others.”

Cattelan, describing an idea that developed over time, says that at one point he imagined a gallery divided in two, with shooters on one side of a transparent bulletproof wall and visitors on the other. Perhaps, fortunately, this did not happen. At another point he imagined a single golden panel. But at Gagosian, “the space called for something bolder. One panel became 64”.

As this is a gallery, some (but not all) of the panels are for sale. Although Gagosian does not disclose prices, it says that a third of the panels were sold, at US$375,000 each.

It’s probably much more expensive than some similar bullet-filled panels by another artist, Anthony James, displayed elsewhere in Manhattan. James’ lawyer wrote to Gagosian, the gallery confirmed, asking for details about how Cattelan came up with the idea. Cattelan, through the gallery, says any copy claims are “without merit”. This is not the first time the artist has faced such accusations; a federal judge from Miami ruled in your favor about a complaint involving its famous banana.

Cattelan has been called a shock artist and a bad boy of contemporary art, difficult and difficult to define. But on a recent morning, smiling and sipping tea from a cup, the artist seemed as affable as could be. “Do I look difficult?” he asked with a smile.

Asked about the “shock artist” moniker, Andy Avini, senior director at Gagosian, responded: “I would describe him as a very sensitive artist. The symbols used are shocking. They are not necessarily your symbols – they are symbols that are in society.”

Avini says “Sunday” is a follow-up to Cattelan’s 2016 “America,” aka his fully functional toilet cast in 18-karat gold that was placed in a Guggenheim Museum bathroom, realizing an “American dream of opportunity for all ”.

Unfortunately, some thieves likely took this idea too literally, seizing the opportunity steal the bathroom later from Blenheim Palace in Great Britain, where it was loaned. It was never recovered. (Because it was connected to the plumbing, the theft caused extensive damage to the 18th-century house.)

Either way, Avini said, the current show takes the idea behind the bathroom “one step further, where the discussion is about violence and wealth. Very specifically, gun violence.” And even more specifically, the ease of obtaining weapons.

Cattelan won’t be so specific. But that doesn’t mean he’s not interested in other takes. When Mark Folino, an art lover from Boston, introduced himself to the artist and offered his own interpretation of the long-standing divide in American society, Cattelan listened intently and called a gallery employee.

“Take notes!” he instructed.