$120,000 banana, praying Hitler: Infamous art world prankster Maurizio Cattelan's first Seoul outing

Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's tongue-in-cheek ephemeral sculpture entitled "Comedian" (2019), which made headlines at Art Basel Miami Beach three years ago, is on view at the Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul as part of "WE," his first solo exhibition in the country. Yonhap

By Park Han-sol

A ripe banana with a price tag of $120,000 duct-taped to a wall. That was enough to make the art world go bananas in December 2019, when the "ephemeral sculpture" proudly made its appearance at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Sure, there's quite an obvious difference between the cost of the two ingredients and their final purchase price. But, what's more, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian," when sold, does not include either of those things.

What one buys is the "idea" of the taped banana, Galerie Perrotin, the gallery responsible for bringing Cattelan's work to the prestigious art fair, noted. To be more precise, what the buyer gets is a "certificate of authenticity" from the artist along with a detailed 14-page set of instructions on how the sculpture should be installed.

That's why the gallery officials simply replaced the store-bought fruit with another one without batting an eye when a random performance artist came up to the piece during the fair and devoured it within seconds. The slowly rotting physical object is gone, but the idea lives on.

Italian artist and provocateur Maurizio Cattelan / Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art

Considering the track record of notorious provocateur Cattelan, "Comedian" can be seen as a self-conscious prank played on the present-day art market, which thrives on hype and shock value to drive up art prices. Who gets to determine what is art and its worth?

Viewers in Korea can make up their own minds about the piece, now on view at the Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul as part of the artist's first solo exhibition in the country.

"WE" is a comprehensive survey of the art world's prankster's 38 sculptures, installations and murals that have garnered both praise and scorn over his three-decade career.

It's the largest show ever held since his 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York, where all 128 of his works were dangled in midair like a surrealist Christmas tree in the museum's iconic rotunda.

Maurizio Cattelan's "La Nona Ora" (1999) / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

Having received no formal training in art, Cattelan "intruded" into the contemporary art scene and rose to global stardom in the 1990s as one of the most controversial creators of the time. The 62-year-old's unsettlingly realistic, satirical sculptures take a jab at socially ingrained norms and notions of authority in politics and religion.

His "La Nona Ora" brings an absurd scenario to life, where a life-size wax figure of Pope John Paul II in white robes gets struck by a meteorite. At the museum, the destabilizing sculpture is placed facing the wooden replica of the Vatican City's Sistine Chapel.

"Him" takes it a step further by turning Adolf Hitler into a sheepish schoolboy on his knees seemingly asking for forgiveness. And what about "Frank and Jamie," a pair of uniformed New York City police officers doing a headstand along a wall?

Maurizio Cattelan's "Him" (2001) / Yonhap

The Italian artist doesn't shy away from dethroning symbols of power and pretense in the art world, which he says is an intimate part of either.

He parodies Argentine-Italian painter Lucio Fontana's signature slashed canvas by making the cuts in the famous sign of the letter Z for vigilante Zorro. A photograph of his 1999 performance "A Perfect Day" is also on view, where he duct-taped his art dealer Massimo De Carlo to the gallery's white wall in Milan for hours for the exhibition's opening day. Remind you of anything? And at the entrance and lobby of Leeum lie two wax effigies of homeless men ― "Donghoon and Junho," who fooled this reporter for a good minute into thinking they were real ― as a wry commentary on the privileged status of museums.

Installation view of Maurizio Cattelan's solo exhibition "WE" at the Leeum Museum of Art / Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art

Cattelan's playful yet subversive provocation is placed alongside his more somber pieces musing on the idea of death.

More than 100 taxidermied horses, pigeons, dogs and donkeys ― including his renowned "Novecento," with a horse's sagging body suspended from the ceiling ― are strewn across the museum's three floors, locking eyes with anyone who dares to go closer.

"All" consists of nine sculptures carved from white marble, a haunting depiction of human bodies lying on the floor, shrouded under white sheets. Produced more than a decade ago in 2007, the image it evokes strikes viewers in Korea in a tragic way, as the memory of the Itaewon disaster is still too fresh. The Oct. 29 tragedy, which took place just a 15-minute walk away from the museum, killed at least 158 people in a fatal crowd crush last year.

"Cattelan has been called the terrible child of Marcel Duchamp, the bad friend of Andy Warhol and the creator with an aura of Joseph Beuys," the museum's deputy director Kim Sung-won said during the Monday press preview. "This curated selection of his masterpieces will help the audience in Korea better understand who he is and what artistic philosophy has guided his oeuvre for three decades beyond his recent label as a 'banana artist.'"

"WE" runs through July 16 at the Leeum Museum of Art. Admission is free.

Viewers look at Maurizio Cattelan's "Untitled" (2007) on view at the Leeum Museum of Art / Newsis