Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan has been a force of satire and provocativeness for the past few decades in the art world. He’s turned heads with sculptures of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite, a praying Hitler in a former Warsaw Ghetto, and a taxidermied squirrel moments after suicide by self-inflicted gunshot. A new documentary, “Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back,” explores the life of the controversial artist.
The thrust of the film is found in this quote: “I think he’s probably one of the greatest artists that we have today,” says gallerist Adam Lindemann. “But he could also be the worst. It’s going to be one or the other. “It’s not going to fall in the middle.”
Several other quotes at the end of the trailer offer more of the artist, scoffed at by some critics and viewers and wholly embraced by others.
“He doesn’t make art … he makes tendentious tchotchkes,” the New Yorker says.
” … depraved and pointless … ,” says The Guardian.
“My genital herpes flared up right after I saw it …,” John W. says.
Watch the film’s trailer below. The film is being screened in a few theaters across the country. See the full line-up here.