Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Art Newspaper, an editorial partner of CNN Style.
(CNN) — The Italian artist and provocateur Maurizio Cattelan shines a light on gun violence and the divisions in US society in a new installation at Gagosian in New York City. Cattelan’s piece “Sunday (2024)” consists of 64 stainless-steel panels plated in 24-carat gold and dotted with thousands of bullet holes.
The work was created by a group of licensed professionals at a gun range in Brooklyn, who shot more than 20,000 rounds into the 3mm-thick panels, which were made in Europe.
“We live in a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming poorer,” Cattelan told The Art Newspaper. “History has taught us how violently that polarization can end. “This idea was present in ‘America’ (the solid-gold toilet installed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2016), and I have used gold once again to talk about another aspect of the United States. America was about wealth, and this new work is about violence and wealth,” he added.
While Gagosian declined to comment on cost, The Art Newspaper understands that the panels are individually priced between $300,000 and $400,000. Cattelan is not represented by Gagosian but instead chooses to work with galleries on individual projects.
The work is paired with an editioned marble sculpture, “November (2024),” that depicts an unhoused figure urinating on a bench. “If you’re free to buy an assault rifle in a department store, what’s wrong with pissing in public?” Francesco Bonami, the exhibition curator, said in a statement.
The artist is known for his headline-hitting conceptual works — such as “Comedian,” his 2019 showstopper at Art Basel in Miami Beach. “Comedian” was just a banana attached to the wall with grey duct tape, but the conceptually audacious, over-ripe readymade drew crowds and divided critics.
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