art isn’t funny –
but we should laugh anyway : on maurizio cattelan
Art isn’t serious. What makes it serious is the business behind it. Even the critique of it. I’ve thought of ways how one can write about humor in the art critic-sphere, but it’s a difficult business. Because from my background, art is a way that changes the world, creates this indefinite impact on the soul. When we look at humor, is it armed with the same impact?
Catalan’s show sold out all time slots at the Leeum Museum. To make it, you must wait for reservations to cancel and trickle down the pipeline of forgotten tickets. Thankfully I snagged one for 11 AM before a lunch reservation at noon. I overheated my phone with a speed-viewing of the show:
Hung horse drummer boy two men sleeping shy elephant dead mouse bodies bodies bodies rock-smashed pope stacked skeletons pencil stabbed kids and much more.
Catalan knows how to look at the saddest of life and make a laugh out of it. He can look at roadkill and imagine theater out of imaginary taxidermy, realized then in his exhibitions. He does this of himself too. Miniature doubles of himself. Hung from walls. Dug deep in holes. Set himself side by side in a tiny bed. He sees the hollowness within people and things without having to carve them out or fill them in. In this respect, to see what is within from the exterior is a humanity in developing calluses around the things we know, but don’t entirely understand.
Just last week I saw a dead bird on the side of the road. With its yellow-hued chest, beating a bit, thin belts of ants wrapped themselves around it, feasting, harvesting, and letting the bird become part of the gravel in the road, part of the brittle dust in the day. Nothing stirred within me. Not the fatigue of the day. Not the shrug of a languid life. My entire posture for the week was slumped. My steps felt heavier than normal, like I was transporting bales of hay for feet up a hill with no end in sight. Less and less, music in, eyes glued to my phone, sight shrinks and hollows out to a murky blur. Only to go home to watch an hour-long show to shell out the anxieties of the day. Numbness set. Then, I guess, sleep.
I could not see the bird for what it could be. Only for what it is. Was. Death. Death done. Death is. But if Catalan saw the bird, he could put a sombrero on it or tap shoes and create a cute little stage for it. Give it life. Give it song. Make it sing and dance. Let us laugh.
The beauty of Cattalan’s work is that he is able to make us laugh in moments where we can’t think to laugh ourselves, when we most need it. In times I cry, laughter comes as a saving grace, a beat in guffaw or snort that scatters miseries and depressions in a way that makes them digestible. A laugh is a way of shrinking away every bad thought that overstays its welcome, making room for what should be enough for us.
