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DRUET vs. CATTELAN

Maurizio Cattelan is a well-known media artist, best known for his provocative artistic works such as Comedian (the banana duct-taped to a wall), La Nona Ora (the Pope hit and landed by a meteorite), and America (the golden toilet on display at the Guggenheim).

Now, the French sculptor Daniel Druet has launched an intellectual property dispute that threatens the entire field of contemporary art.

Druet has created nine sculptures at Cattelan's request since 1999, but has never been credited as the sculptor in any exhibition or catalogue. As a result, the French sculptor filed a lawsuit against the Italian artist in the Paris Court of Intellectual Property, requesting recognition as the author of those sculptures and claiming 4.5 million euros in damages.

Druet claimed that when Cattelan commissioned the design of the sculptures, the instructions were very vague, so he had to use his imagination to create such a realistic sculpture.

The Italian artist claimed that Druet had no creative choice in the performance of the artistic work because he was given a detailed set of instructions to follow, thus considering Druet a simple manufacturer.

The Paris Court will now have to decide whether a sculptor who is commissioned by an artist to perform a specific work should be recognized, or if the artist should be the only one recognized as the author, because the sculpture would not exist without the artist's inventive process, whereas another manufacturer could have performed the artist's idea.

Maurizio Cattelan (born September 21, 1960) is a contemporary Italian artist. Cattelan is best known for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, but he also curates and publishes. His satirical approach to art has led to him being labeled as an art world joker or prankster. Cattelan, a self-taught artist, has exhibited internationally in museums and Biennials. His work was featured in a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2011. Cattelan's most famous works include America, a solid gold toilet; La Nona Ora, a sculpture depicting a fallen Pope hit by a meteorite; and Comedian, a fresh banana duct-taped to a wall.

Cattelan was born in Padua, Italy on September 21, 1960. His mother, a cleaning lady, and father, a truck driver, raised him there. In the early 1980s, he began his career in Forli, Italy, designing and manufacturing wooden furniture (Italy). Cattelan has no formal art training. He has stated that "making shows has been my school" in addition to reading art catalogues.

Cattelan's work is characterized by humour and satire; as a result, he has been variously labeled as an art scene joker, jester, or prankster. Jonathan P. Binstock, curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, has described him as "one of the great post-Duchampian artists and a smartass, too." Cattelan explained the concept of originality to ethnographer Sarah Thornton during a conversation about it "Originality does not exist in and of itself. It is a progression of what is produced... Originality is defined by your ability to add." His work frequently relied on simple puns or subverted clichéd situations, such as substituting animals for people in sculptural tableaux. "Cattelan's humour, which is frequently morbidly fascinating, elevates his work above the visual pleasure one-liners," wrote Carol Vogel of the New York Times.

Cattelan's first work was a framed self-portrait in 1989 titled Lessico Familiare (Family Syntax), in which he is depicted forming a Hand Heart over his naked chest.

During the mid-1990s, Cattelan was well-known for his use of taxidermy. The taxidermied body of a former racehorse named Tiramisu hangs from a harness in an elongated, drooping posture in Novecento (1997). Bidibidobidiboo (1996), a miniature depiction of a squirrel slumped over its kitchen table with a handgun at its feet, is another work that employs taxidermy.

He began making life-size wax effigies of various subjects, including himself, in 1999. La Nona Ora (1999), one of his most well-known works, depicts an effigy of Pope John Paul II in full ceremonial costume being crushed by a meteor.
In 1999, he co-curated the Caribbean Biennial with Jens Hoffmann.

He co-founded "The Wrong Gallery," a glass door leading to a 2.5 square foot exhibition space on 516A12 West 20th Street in New York City, in 2002. After the building that housed the gallery was sold, the door and gallery were placed in the Tate Modern's collection until 2009.

Cattelan co-curated the 2006 Berlin Biennale with long-term collaborators Ali Subotnick and Massimiliano Gioni. Cattelan's articles are frequently published in international publications such as Flash Art.

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