In conversation with Maurizio Cattelan’s conscience

Maurizio Cattelan didn’t write his autobiography. Neither did he request it or endorse it, and he certainly hasn’t bothered to read it.

“What I am about to tell is a true story: one part is serious, the other is wretched,” it begins. “Seriousness and wretchedness: the ingredients that have made this artist a genius of our time and who knows which others.”

Its long-suffering author, Francesco Bonami, is known for many things. He curated the 2003 Venice Biennale and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. He served as Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and was director at both Fondazione Sandretto in Turin and the Fondazione Pitti in Florence. But perhaps his most exasperating role has been serving as the conscience of his friend, the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

Naturally, Cattelan vows that any reference to him is purely coincidental—a book “full of mistakes that turn out, by chance, to be exactly right”. Which is precisely why Stuck: Maurizio Cattelan—The Unauthorized Autobiography might be the artist’s most truthful portrait yet. Spanning Cattelan’s childhood in Padua to the infamous $5.2M banana, the book has been rereleased this month by Gagosian, to coincide with ‘Bones’, Cattelan’s solo exhibition at Davies Street, and his takeover of the Gagosian Shop and gallery in Burlington Arcade in London (8 April–24 May 2025).

And it’s here, in the basement of Burlington Arcade, that I find myself in one of the more unusual interview dynamics: Francesco Bonami speaking as Maurizio Cattelan, about Maurizio Cattelan, in conversation with himself, Francesco Bonami—and me. What follows is a conversation that’s half-stunt, half-confession, and entirely in character, between two old friends. Kind of. Maybe. Depending on who you believe.

Annabel Downes: How was the opening last night?

Maurizio Cattelan: I enjoyed it. Francesco and I don’t usually go out together unless it’s a gallery dinner, so it was nice.

Francesco Bonami: It’s true, we lead very different lives. I don’t particularly like what he does, and I’m glad he doesn’t like what I do. Otherwise it would be extremely boring.

AD: How far do you two go back?

FB: I met Maurizio in 1991. We were both living in the East Village in New York. Both Italian, both in the art world, and we just started hanging out.

MC: We probably met in Italy before that. Bonami just doesn’t remember because back then I wasn’t famous, or a curator, or very career-focused. People like him only talked to people who could help their career. He probably thought I wasn’t an interesting enough artist, which is why I remember him more than he remembers me.

AD: Well, he came round. And now he’s the one standing in for you in interviews.

FB: I was the second pick. He had a younger, sexier one before me — Massimiliano Gioni, an old student of mine. When Maurizio got famous, he began doing the opposite of what I was telling him, and started looking to younger, upcoming curators who would announce his career better.

AD: Was Francesco your second choice for your autobiography too?

MC: I was actually against him writing it. I just couldn’t stop him. He does whatever he wants. I mean have you seen how he drew my nose in Leftovers: The Bonami’s Cattelans upstairs? Yes, it’s quite amusing, but I can’t do anything about my nose. He’s also written some terrible articles about me over the years, but I just have to accept it. It’s what this friendship is about.

FB: I mean yes, but I don’t stray too far from the truth. I based the autobiography on stories you told me, then built on them. It’s semi-fictional — some things are true, some perhaps less so. But Maurizio never told me if he liked it. He’d never give me that satisfaction. He’s too diplomatic.

AD: I guess now’s your chance.

MC: I didn’t read it, so I can’t comment. I mean it’s his book, so it’s his problem. I hope he does well with it.

AD: Francesco, do you like being Maurizio?

FB: I’d like to be David Hockney. I think Maurizio would quite like to be Hockney too. The only clinch is Maurizio is a heterosexual and Hockney is not. But I think you wouldn’t mind switching if it means becoming a painter that good.

MC: Hockney looks like a guy who enjoys life immensely. Not in a Kardashian way. In a grounded, normal way. And honestly, that’s probably the greatest luxury an artist can have: to make great work, earn good money and live a normal life.

FB: But Maurizio, I think you quite like being Maurizio. You’ve always stuck to yourself. You’ve stuck to your character. And now you’re stuck to the banana.

MC: Yes, I dug myself a huge hole with this banana.

FB: Well, I’m not just saying this because you’re here, and it seems a bombastic statement — and one which would drive the Italians crazy — but I think that banana might’ve made you the most famous Italian artist since Caravaggio.

AD: What was going through your mind when it sold at Sotheby’s last year?

MC: The first thought, of course, was I wish I had owned it. I wouldn’t have minded the cash. But more seriously, I started thinking about what I’d actually put out into the world. One of my biggest regrets as an artist is that I can’t paint. If you look around galleries over the past decade, so much of it is paintings, and those are the works pulling in astronomical prices and I have to admit, I’ve felt a bit envious of that. So taping that banana to the wall… it was my way of saying this is my painting. But I never imagined it would become what it did.

FB: I think you seemed to unconsciously create — outside the crypto NFT art world perhaps — one of the first images that doesn’t need to exist in reality. It’s not so much a work of art anymore; it’s a contemporary religious icon.

MC: That’s kind Francesco. But if we’re going down that road, let me say something preposterous. If the guy who bought the banana wanted to eat the real work of art, and really destroy it in its entirety, I think he should have eaten the tape too. Leaving behind the tape, builds up an even stronger icon devoted to the void left. An icon, if that’s what the banana has become, is almost impossible to destroy.