Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Tragicomic poet-prankster Maurizio Cattelan has turned the Guggenheim’s rotunda into a hanging carousel of colorful characters, effigies, surrogates and stuffed dead things that dangle from their gallows in chaotic companionship. Cattelan has also announced his retirement and, in this final exhibition, his magnum opus, he unites ‘All’ his lively, eccentric offspring, staging the ultimate mass execution.

Nancy Spector, the chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, worked with Cattelan in putting the show together. I asked Spector if the artist’s use of taxidermy was to inspire empathy in his audience. “Absolutely, the animals are anthropomorphic and they are self-portraits and surrogates of him, they have a humanizing quality, if you think of Aesop’s fables – where there is usually a moral to the story – it is very much on that level.”

“Where does he get the animals from?” I asked, imagining him picking through the dead pigeons piling up in Venice’s Piazza San Marco.

Installation View - Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Maurizio Cattelan, Stephanie, 2003, Guggenheim Museum 2011

Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

“They all have certificates from the taxidermists that they died natural deaths,” said Spector, careful to defend the artist in advance, adding, “Or in the case of the pigeons, from a civic-level eradication program; so everything has been carefully documented and preserved. We do have the paperwork on everything if that may become a concern…”

“In Venice, where they have a huge pigeon population, Maurizio gets permission from the city if they are killing the pigeons, to [acquire them] for his artwork.”

Cattelan’s work has a heavy infusion of mea culpa, that include his suicidal squirrels and the homo-nuanced We – to his genuflecting and supplicant sculpture Him, depicting Hitler on his knees begging for forgiveness.

I asked Spector if she thought his Roman-Catholic upbringing had inspired any sense of anti-authority or had affected any anti religious sentiments.

“He just deals with his anxiety in being brought up with a religion that promotes a certain level of guilt, and Maurizio is very guilt prone – his mother was extremely religious and she was very ill during his entire childhood; she died of lymphatic cancer in his early twenties – during her disease, she became an inspirational religious person in her radio show, and his sister is also a nun – so it is something that is deeply personal; he has a respect for it, but at the same time there is also a healthy dose of a questioning of authority.”

The pope struck down by a meteorite above in La Nona Ora, Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Spector also explained her involvement in engineering the show, beginning with a scale model to correctly identify weight distribution, and meeting all the safety requirements for works on loan to the museum.

Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2011

Punta Della Dogana, Venice - photo kisa lala

Aside from the biennale there was a surfeit of art on the island; here are some from the overflow.

Christian Boltanski at the French Pavilion in 54th Venice Biennale 2011 – “Chance.” Babies on Track: A mechanical view of the birth of chance.

Anton Ginzburg goes in search of Hyperborea, a mythic land, the home of the North Wind. The wind served as a haunting sound-track for the video shot in Russia and Siberia, and Oregon.

Anton Ginzburg - At the back of the North Wind: Hyperborea Series

Plenty of wolves sighted in Oregon – enough to be present in the artist’s video.

Anton Ginzburg - At the back of the North Wind: Hyperborea Series

Strangely static: Stuffed pigeons were perched everywhere:

Maurizio Cattelan Turisti 1997 Taxidermized pigions Environmental dimension Courtesy of Maurizio Cattelan Archive

Artist Polly Morgan showed new work in Venice.

Polly Morgan, Burials, Workshop Arte Contemporanea, Venice 2011

South African artist Nicholas Hlobo's work at Arsenale

The Fondazione Prada at Ca' Corner della Regina had works by Kapoor, Hirst, Francesco Vezzoli and others.

Neon sign: Bye Bye Ai Wei Wei on the waterfront

Simon de Pury, turning law and reason on its head, in front of Maurizio Cattelan's Frank and Jaime, 2002. Edition of 3. Estimated at $1-1.5 million. Photo credit:Kisa Lala

Let the drum-rolls begin – Simon dePury, the market-savvy chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company, was at hand to christen the new Park Avenue location for the inaugural preview of the Part 1- Contemporary Art Evening Sale. The collection, entitled ‘Carte Blanche,’ curated by Phillipe Segalot, former international head of Christie’s Contemporary Art, is scheduled for auction November 8, 2010, with a low-estimate of $80,000,000.

Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy) 1998-99.Ektacolor photograph. Edition of 2 plus artist proof. Estimated at $1-1.5 million

Phillips’ move uptown to the new 25,559 square feet space at 450 Park Ave will extend their buyers’ circle beyond the Meatpacking District, and bring them closer to their bidding rivals Sotheby’s and Christie’s. “The sale will be a game-changer in the way auctions are being prepared,” said Simon de Pury.

Simon de Pury looking pleased in front of the inverted cops' of Maurizio Cattelan's Frank and Jaime. Photo credit: Kisa Lala

Paul McCarthy, Mechanical Pig, 2005. Edition of 3 +1 AP. Estimate $2.5-3.5 million

Takashi Murakami, the poster child for the show, is his own best salesman. Riding high on his Versailles exhibition, he currently commands high prices (listed estimate of $4-6million for Miss KO²), but his work, though astonishing at first, can quickly turn dreary on the twentieth reiteration. It’s unfortunate for Warhol that his career ended before the Age of Reproduction fully took hold, because with the multiplicity of editions that abound, even Walter Benjamin would be baffled by the soaring and undiminished value of an ‘original’.

But sometimes, a reproduction, as in the case of Cattelan’s Stephanie, maybe a better bargain than its original.

Maurizio Cattelan, Stephanie, 2003. Edition of 3 + 1 AP Estimate: $1-1.5 million

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #153, 1985. Edition of 6. Estimate: $2-$3 million

View of Phillips de Pury's space at 450 Park Avenue with upper tier skyboxes for premium clients. Photo: Kisa Lala

Polly Morgan, Systemic Inflammation, 2010, Taxidermy finches and canaries, steel, leather © Polly Morgan

UK artist Polly Morgan’s artworks have rarely been exhibited across the pond, and for that matter, they may well be quarantined before we get a closer look. Morgan trained early in her career as a taxidermist, specializing in skinning and mounting animals before recontexutalizing her work in a gallery setting, presenting the stuffed, trussed specimens like bizarre Victorian curios: rats in champagne glasses, dead chicks spilling out of the crevices of old coffins, and exquisite corpses entombed in jewellery cases. But within these fanciful visions lie an implicit meditation on death.

Flight of Fancy (Nuthatch), 2009 Crystal jewellery box, 2009 Crystal jewellery boxtaxidermy Nuthatch, © Polly Morgan

In Psychopomps, her latest solo-show at Haunch of Venison in London, she presents the animals as mythical flying creatures that convey souls into the after-life. The suspended taxidermist sculptures are fabulous allusions to their mythological counterparts, death’s escorts like Hermes and Charon and Anubis the jackal-headed Egyptian God, or the Norse Valkyries, who choose those who die in battle and bring them into Valhalla.

Carrion Call, (Detail) 2009 by Polly Morgan. Wooden coffin, taxidermy quail chicks

Polly Morgan Still Birth (Purple), 2010, Taxidermy pheasant chick,

In one such Psychopomp, a preserved cardinal is suspended inside a bare white ribcage and in another, the birds carry off their cage rather than be imprisoned by it. A composite of crow feathers like a monstrous swarm suggests a metamorphosis, a transitional state for the soul in its flight from life.

Morgan is not unique in her fascination with stuffed dead things, Maurizio Cattelan and the Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping are among those who have brought humor and poignancy to the morbid  world of corpses.  When Deyrolle burned down in Paris, many artists rushed to salvage the crisped mummified bears and tigers from the ashes – but Morgan alone has apprenticed in the art of preserving the moment of death before the onset of decay.

The artist grew up in the Cotswolds with rather an eccentric upbringing, surrounded by goats and llamas and an animal-loving father who insisted on dissecting them to ascertain the cause of their deaths. Morgan has said she would not create taxidermies of an animal she had known when alive, but has become habituated to using the animals as material for her art much like an artist might use paint. Instead of a fear of death, Morgan’s sculptures evoke a magical sense of transformation, a celebration and anticipation of the journey beyond.

Polly Morgan, Psychopomp, Haunch of Venison, 6 Burlington Gardens, till September 25^th 2010

All Photographs Courtesy of Haunch of Venison

In 1985, when billionaire Greek industrialist Dakis Joannou bought the first piece of his now world-renowned contemporary art collection—a basketball signed by Dr. Jay submerged in a tank of water and simply titled “Equilibrium”—it started two chain reactions. One, Mr. Koons would never have to worry about people buying his work again, as Jonnau has been very successful in buying up most of it for his monolithic museum in Athens. Secondly, Joannou would be very adept in helping to solidify emerging artists and future greats (Terrence Koh, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami), as well as helping to shape the very nature of collecting.

And thus, in the middle of last week, the world got the first look at Jeff Koons’ curatorial debut: “Skin Fruit: Selections for the Dakis Joannou Collection.” On how he chose the pieces for the exhibition, Koons told SPREAD ArtCulture: “I did everything very intuitively. I’ve known Dakis since 1985, and from meeting with him and following the collection from that time, I just wanted to try and capture what I felt represented his interests and his ambition and broadness in collecting contemporary art…but very intuitively.”

SPREAD ArtCulture: Is this your first of many curating efforts?

Jeff Koons: I think artists always curate their own work, but I have an Ed Paschke show that will open in about two weeks that I will curate that I brought together. But it’s like anything: When you’re creating an artwork, you’re just following your interests, and in curating, it’s the same thing. But it’s intuitive, there’s a lot of great work. Some of the best art pieces, some of the best works in the collection, aren’t here. Maybe they’re on loan or it’s an artist’s work that didn’t it within this context of looking at the body.

SAC: How did you choose the pieces in this show and under what context?

JK: It’s just my intuition. I would go through the collection and choose works that I felt represented Dakis’s desire with the collection, and I would go back through and go over them again, and I would find that I was always coming up with the same things. And I made models of the museum; I would lay things out and they developed their own relationships, and it’s just the same when you’re following your own ideas and creating your own works that this happens. It got to a point where if I would try and move something on one of the floors, and take it from one location to another, for me, it just wouldn’t work.

Some of the artists we were able to speak to at the opening, such as Terence Koh, were far less articulate about their involvement in the show:

A sculpture by Terence Koh

SPREAD ArtCulture: Tell me about your involvement in Skin Fruit.

Terence Koh: I was just chosen.

SAC: What are you working on now?

TK: Drinking water.

Koh was the only artist to have sculptures, as well as paintings, in the show.

Some patrons, such as the Chelsea behemoth Tony Shafrazi, were able to weigh in with the learned authority of and award-winning curator (Shafrazi was the recipient of Rob Pruitt’s “Best Group Show” in 2009 at the first ever Art Awards):

"Noodles" by Urs Fischer

SPREAD ArtCulture: What do you think of the show?

Tony Shafrazi: I love the show! I think it’s an eclectic wonderful representation of what’s going on. Dakis is a great collector, and has been for many years, and you see such a great mixture of young, new work, such as been selected from a great many things. I love this Fischer piece right here (Urs Fischer’s “Noodles”), don’t you just love it? It’s one of my favorite pieces in the place. Every piece in here is interesting.

Charles Ray's "Aluminum Girl"

"Fall '91" by Charles Ray (foreground); Terence Koh's "Chocolate Mountains" (background)

Charles Ray's "Revolution Counter-Revolution"

A piece by Downtown favorite and partner of the late Dash Snow, Dan Colen

Dan Altmejd's calamitous "Giant"

Maurizio Cattelan's very bland and largely pedantic "All," an eight-piece installation featuring life-size body bags carved from Carrara marble

"Untitled (Jack)" by Paul McCarthy, which could be a prop straight out of Kubrick

A wonderfully whimsical and weird colloboration by the team of Paul McCarthy and Paula Jones

A wonderfully whimsical and weird colloboration by the team of Paul McCarthy and Paula Jones

There seemed to be a very even split among opening-night patrons as to whether or not the show was a success. Check it out for yourself until June 6th and let us know what you think.

François Pinault with the architect Tadao Ando on the Grand Canal. Photo: Graziano Arici

At the entrance to the city of Venice, parting the waters between the Giudecca and the Grand Canal like a ship’s prow, is the Dogana di Mare, the Sea Custom House from 1677. The Dogana was the port of entry policing the lucrative trade from the Silk Road of exotic cargo from the Orient and a beacon of medieval power, like the Lighthouse of ancient Alexandria. Long neglected, this crumbling decaying watchtower reclaimed attention when it was sought by the Guggenheim Foundation,which with Zaha Hadid as architect, coveted its premises to host its own collection. But in the end, Venice favoured François Pinault’s plans, who, having dropped the Île Seguin project on the Seine, was looking for a second home for his private collections, already installed in the Palazzo Grassi across the canal.

Pinault chose Tadao Ando to construct a modern museum out of the ruins of the Dogana. Guidelines for historical preservation restricted modifications to the façade, and so to create a contemporary space, Mr. Ando created an inner wall, parallel and separate from the historical foundations matching the triangular tip of Dorsoduro Island. To keep the art dry, one of the difficult phases of renovation was to waterproof the shell of the building to protect against water damage from Venice’s notorious annual flooding during the Alta Aqua.

Punta Della Dogana, Charles Ray's Boy with Frog, 2009, and aerial view of tip.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Blood), 1992 and Maurizio Cattelan Untitled, 2007, Taxidermied horse

The triumphant awakening of the Punta Della Dogana from its hundred years of dormancy—coinciding with its first exhibition of artwork from Pinault’s own collection curated by Francesco Bonami and Alison M. Gingeras—called Mapping the Studio, which addresses the art’s trajectory from the private studio of the artist —via the collector—to the public domain of the viewer. Ms. Gingeras has also curated Pop Life at the Tate Modern recently, and Francesco Bonami is slated to be co-curator for the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

Stepping into the Dogana for the first time, I was struck by the minimalist grandeur of the interior, which is a melding of medieval brickwork with Ando’s austere vision. I passed through Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ scarlet-beaded curtain, hanging like drops of blood, into an entombed and autonomous world, futuristic and separate from the bustle of ancient Venice outside. Displayed on multiple levels, the collection is a tribute to Pinault’s exquisite taste and curatorial decisions, which play with architectural light and space. Jeff Koons’ Bourgeois Bust is silhouetted by the semi-circular windows, which frame the Venetian gondoliers below, serenading their love-boat passengers. Although the collection has scattered elements of whimsy—Maurzio Catellan’s taxidermied horse absurdly stuck on the wall (a reversal of a trophy head) and Cy Twombly’s colourful and calming frescos—there are works that demand darker contemplation, such as the Chapmen brothers, Fucking Hell and Paul McCarthy’s Train, Pig Island. The curators wed established artists with newer ones, along with works by the same artist spanning a passage of time that diverge in emotion. Alison Gingeras says of Pinault as a collector, “What is interesting is his choice to follow twenty artists. Not only is he loyal to them, but he also discerns what is new in their work. He tends to choose artists that evolve, who do not continually express the same message or produce the same works over and over.”

Jeff Koons, Bourgeois Bust – Jeff and Ilona, 1991, marble.

Outside at the prow of the building is Charles Ray’s Boy with Frog, commissioned by Pinault for the Punta della Dogana. It is a take on Donatello’s David (c1440), and instead of the head of Goliath he holds in his fists a frog, and captures in his wondrous gaze a sense of astonishment at his own creative prowess.

“Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection,” Venice, Italy.  All installation Views and Photos Courtesy Punta della Dogana & © Palazzo Grassi SpA. Foto: ORCH, orsenigo_chemollo