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Property of a European Collector MAURIZIO CATTELAN (b. 1960) LESS THAN TEN ITEMS galvanized meta...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:60,000.00 - 80,000.00 USD
Property of a European Collector MAURIZIO CATTELAN (b. 1960) LESS THAN TEN ITEMS galvanized meta...
Property of a European Collector MAURIZIO CATTELAN (b. 1960) LESS THAN TEN ITEMS galvanized metal, metal, plastic and rubber 421/8 x 831/4 x 221/2 in. (107 x 211.5 x 57.2 cm) executed in 1997 Estimate: - $60,000-80,000 PROVENANCE Laure Genillard Gallery, LONDON LITERATURE F. Bonami, N. Spector and B. Vanderlinden, MAURIZIO CATTELAN, LONDON, 2000, p. 136 Maurizio Cattelan's ambivalent association with the art world has been well documented over the years by several memorable projects, some of which, with typical Cattelan humor, draw our attention to the interdependence and parallel strategies of art and commerce. Forever wry and irreverent, in 1992 Cattelan spearheaded a fundraising effort to subsidize market-saturated artists-as long as they agreed to curb their production (Oblomov Foundation), and a year later he sold his exhibition space at the Venice Biennale to an advertising agency that then used the exposure to market a new perfume (Working is a Bad Job, 1993). Similar themes are evident in Less Than Ten Items, 1997, a surreal "super-sized" grocery cart that was initially exhibited in a museum as a mobile sculpture. The work's sardonic title implores us to be discerning and efficient shoppers by imposing the limit common to grocery store "express" checkout lines. As participants roll the empty cart between sculptures and past paintings, they come to resemble traditional dazed consumers pacing the aisles. Taking familiar criticisms about the commodification of art to a hilarious extreme, this project enlivens ongoing museological debates about display methodologies that treat ideas as easily consumable facts, and it asks us difficult questions about the expectations we bring to cultural institutions as viewers. Despite these thoughtful jabs, Cattelan deliberately leaves Less Than Ten Items conceptually open-ended. His ambiguous opinion of the aesthetic experiences with which we are supposed to metaphorically "fill our trolleys" is here represented by the sculpture's enlarged carriage that suggests both vacuity and overabundance.