You fail constantly. There is a capacity to be always in the position to use this little failure to move ahead and transform it into something positive.
Cattelan, Gioni and Subotnick became known in the art world as a curating team when they founded The Wrong Gallery in 2002. Based in New York’s art gallery district, Chelsea, the tiny non-profit art space of one square meter hosted more than 40 shows, including artists like Lawrence Weiner, Shirana Shahbazi, Tino Sehgal and Elizabeth Peyton. The Wrong Times arose from this project: a newspaper featuring interviews with all the artists shown at The Wrong Gallery.
Speaking of printed matters, Cattelan, Gioni and Subotnick also founded the publication series, Charley, in 2001 which deals with contemporary art in another consuming way. Based on the concept of collecting formats and contexts, the three mix up the information they find in recent publications and give way for new interpretations and coherences.
The largest project for the trio so far, is the 4th berlin biennial for contemporary art, titled Of Mice and Men, taking place from March 25th to May 28th, 2006. The biennial is accompanied by a series of endeavors, including short artist interviews released every other week in Zitty, the publication, Checkpoint Charley (a berlin biennial special issue collecting images from more than 700 artists researched for the biennial), and the Gagosian Gallery, Berlin, a ‘guerilla-franchise’ art space under the involuntary patronage of New York’s most powerful gallery.
Maurizio Cattelan (born 1960 in Padua, Italy) is an internationally well-established artist, best known for his provocative and humorous installations as well as turning the art world upside down.
Massimiliano Gioni (born 1973 in the province of Milan, Italy) was the editor of the US art magazine, Flash Art, has published numerous articles and books on contemporary art and is the artistic director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan.
Ali Subotnick (born 1972 in Laguna Nigel, California, USA) works as editor, curator and freelance writer in New York. She has written for Parkett and Frieze among others, and organized a show of drawings for the Dakis Joannou Collection in 2003.
Interview by Severin Dünser, Vivian Kea and Florian Rehn
Photography by Kai von Rabenau
Design by Jessica Bentele
Unfortunately, mono.kultur #05 is now sold out. We will soon provide a free PDF version of the issue here, so watch this space.