Yesterday I went with a friend to visit the Maurizio Cattelan exhibit, "All," at the Guggenheim Museum. This was one of those "expand-your-world" kind of experiences. For starters, the entire retrospective was hung from the ceiling--like laundry put out to dry!
The walls of the museum were bare. All attention was focused on the central, open rotunda. Sybil and I took the elevator to the sixth floor and then walked down the gently sloping and continuous ramp, looking all the while at the ever-changing installation.
In an essay about the exhibition, Cattelan's work was described as veristic. This was a word I needed to look up. It means, I discovered, to use contemporary, everyday material in preference to "heroic or legendary" materials. The word was aptly chosen.
This is a site-specific installation, a perfect union of art and architecture. It will not be passed on--to anywhere!
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