After LOVE, the middle finger raised in front of Piazza Affari, Maurizio Cattelan stages a new provocation in one of his adopted hometowns, Bologna. Theater of the non-event is the Academy of Fine Arts which this morning was supposed to award the Alinovi-Daolio prize to the artist. In his place, Cattelan sends the comic duo "I soliti idioti" who, dressed as a priest, stage a predictable sneer at the damage or for the pleasure of the educated public gathered for the event. Renato Barilli, an illustrious art critic and retired professor, involuntarily contributes to making the performance complete. ”. It is a pity that a few minutes before it was Barilli himself who explained that the contemporary artist is no longer, necessarily, the painter or sculptor, but one who is endowed with the "art of thinking brilliantly" or of arousing "wonder" like the poet, that is the portrait of Cattelan, the pride of Italian artistic exports. But everything, it seems, has a limit.
The arrival of the winner had been preceded by institutional invitations, by a regular interview in the local news of a newspaper and by Cattelan's promise to return to the city where he had taken his first steps as a true artist, led by the hand of that Roberto Daolio, professor of the Academy and recently deceased, to whom the award is dedicated.
Faithful to the reflection "I get noticed more if I don't go there" instead he missed the plane (or the train). But provocations are the daily bread of the 53-year-old celebrated all over the world: his second exhibition in Bologna was a long queue outside the gallery on the door of which the "I'll be right back" sign hung; it is also known that there is a regular report to the carabinieri for the disappearance of the invisible work. In short, Cattelan likes the game of mirrors, who still manages to give us a few laughs and reflections even today. “Dadaism can reach slightly unbearable limits”, comments the director of the Academy Mauro Mazzali with some reason.
The ceremony could have ended in sadness, if it weren't for the presence of mind of Davide Bertocchi, the artist who won the 2012 Alinovi prize who had to give Cattelan his own work in recognition. Bertocchi, without too many prejudices, places his homage in the hands of the Soliti Idioti: "you must know - he says - that I lived at Cattelan's house in Milan, but I never gave him anything back: here it is". The house key, with a giant keychain attached: a boomerang-shaped skateboard. It could be a nice gift but also a good warning for the series: those who make it, wait for it.
