Maurizio Cattelan
Artist
Biography
Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960 in Padua) is an Italian visual artist known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations; his practice also includes curating and publishing. Self-taught, he has since the early 1990s been one of the defining voices in international art, taking familiar images and shifting them just enough to unsettle their meaning, touching on religion, childhood, authority and collective trauma. His satirical approach has often earned him the label of the art world's prankster. Among his best-known works are La Nona Ora, a sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck by a meteorite; Him (2001); America, a solid gold toilet; and Comedian, a banana duct-taped to a wall. In 2011 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York presented a retrospective of his work, and in 2006 he co-curated the 4th Berlin Biennale. In 2026 he received the Preis der Nationalgalerie, presenting NIGHT, his first major solo exhibition in Germany, at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.