Maurizio CattelanBreath Ghosts Blind

Maurizio Cattelan (born in Padua in 1960) is one of the most prominent Italian artists in the world. In his practice and throughout his thirty-year career, he has staged actions that are often considered provocative and irreverent. His works highlight the paradoxes of society and reflect on political and cultural scenarios with great depth and insight. Through the use of iconic imagery and caustic visual language, his works provoke passionate public debate and encourage a sense of collective participation. Creating works inspired by images that draw on historical events, figures or symbols of contemporary society – sometimes recalled in their most disturbing and traumatic aspects – the artist invites the viewer to change perspective and recognise the complexity and ambiguity of reality. Symbolically representing the cycle of life and conceived as a drama in three acts, Breath Ghosts Blind transforms the three main spaces of Pirelli HangarBicocca into a psychological environment: Sacredness and timelessness with Breath (2021) in the Piazza. Strangeness and agitation with Ghosts (2021) in the huge former industrial spaces of the Navate. The third and final act of Cubo, Blind (2021), takes the form of a memorial made up of a black resin monolith interspersed with the silhouette of a plane.