Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan was born on 21 September 1960 in Padua, Italy. He is self-taught as an artist. Sources describe him attending a technical institute before leaving formal schooling to take a series of jobs and developing his practice through making exhibitions rather than academic training. His only documented academic credential is an honorary degree in sociology awarded by the University of Trento in 2004.

He built his reputation through a run of works built on shock, humor, and institutional critique: La Nona Ora (1999), a hyperrealistic wax figure of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite; Him (2001), a kneeling, child sized figure bearing Adolf Hitler's face; America (2016), a fully functioning eighteen karat gold toilet first installed at the Guggenheim and later at Blenheim Palace; and Comedian (2019), a banana duct taped to a wall that became a global media event when editions sold at Art Basel Miami Beach. He appeared repeatedly at the Venice Biennale across the 1990s and 2000s, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum gave him a full rotunda retrospective, Maurizio Cattelan: All, in 2011, in which his entire body of work was suspended together from the ceiling.

He lives and works between Milan and New York. He is represented by Gagosian and Perrotin, and has a long-standing association with Marian Goodman Gallery. In 2026 he is set to receive the Preis der Nationalgalerie, with an accompanying solo exhibition, NIGHT, opening at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin in September 2026.

Critics and institutions have treated Cattelan as both a provocateur and a serious art historical figure, a combination that has held for more than two decades. His works are routinely read as institutional critique delivered through humor: satire of the art market, of celebrity, and of political and religious authority, staged through hyperrealism and readymade objects rather than traditional sculpture technique. The Guggenheim's 2011 retrospective, which suspended his entire body of work from the rotunda skylight in a single dense cluster, was widely read as both an unusually literal joke about the retrospective format and a serious argument for his art historical standing. The 2026 award of the Preis der Nationalgalerie, one of the most closely watched prizes in European contemporary art, extends that institutional recognition. The recurring critical question is less whether the work is serious than whether its increasing market and media velocity changes what each resale means.

Cattelan's auction market is unusually shaped by spectacle. His current auction record is Him (2001), which sold at Christie's New York in 2016 for about USD 17.2 million. His gold toilet sculpture America, from the same period, sold for USD 12.11 million at Sotheby's New York on 18 November 2025. Neither result generated as much public attention as Comedian, the duct taped banana, which sold for USD 6.2 million at Sotheby's New York and was widely reported as the world's most expensive banana. Together the three sales show a market that rewards Cattelan's most conceptually extreme works with both headlines and price.

No catalogue raisonne has been confirmed for Cattelan, and authentication runs through his representing galleries rather than a published certificate program, so provenance and gallery confirmation matter more than usual. His auction results are widely spaced and driven by a small number of extremely well known, often edition based works, so any single sale, especially one that becomes a media event like Comedian, should be read in the context of that work's specific notoriety rather than as a general market indicator. Collectors should also watch the run up to his September 2026 exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, which is likely to renew market and press attention.