When Maurizio Cattelan wasn’t busy sculpting giant middle fingers or hanging taxidermied horses from the ceiling during the past couple of years, he was thinking about making scarves. Late last year, the artist called on Italian design label Seletti to help him craft a series of team-inspired knit scarves featuring the names of museums around the world, such as the Guggenheim, Fondazione Prada, Hamburger Bahnhof, and more. A limited run of these scarves was sold at each museum, and tonight, Cattelan is auctioning off his personal collection of Museums League scarves, which he made under his own label, Made in Catteland, at Phillips’s 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale. All of the proceeds from the auction, estimated to pull in more than $20,000, will go directly to the Brooklyn Museum. Cattelan calls the scarf project part of his ongoing initiative to promote “art for all,” in which he hopes to break down the traditional barriers between everyday art lovers and those few who can actually afford to purchase art. On top of that, he aims to make art more available to those who might not typically encounter it.
“When you place art in the shops, it’s a way to make it more accessible,” Cattelan explains. “Putting these scarves up for auction is a way to make them more visible, and both ways will widen the audience.” He adds, “We’ll make the people who already bought the scarves happier, because it increases their value and, on the other hand, with the sum that is raised during the auction, the Brooklyn Museum will be able to acquire a work by a young artist for its collection.” Cattelan also believes that creating wearable art has great value, as does collaborating with fashion and design brands to open up the conversation around his work among different audiences. For example, he has a strong partnership with Gucci, and together they are currently working on a show that will open in Shanghai in October. The exhibition will include more than 40 artists and investigate copies as a source of originality. Cattelan sees collaborating with Gucci as another way to shift the general perception that the art world is noninclusive.
“Times are changing,” he explains. “We’ll all eventually have to learn a new format that we can relate to—the art world cannot stay behind and must evolve using this language. Made in Catteland is a project that aims to overcome the boundaries of the work of art as we’re used to thinking of it: exploring new possibilities of reaching the audience through the creation of new forms of art.”