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« The World Is Beautiful » (2004)
Bijutsuko (Child of the Arts), a Japanese girl, leaves the temple of Sanzen in Kyoto to embark towards Tokyo. It is at the same time a physical and metaphorical course through Japan. If, at the beginning of the voyage, she still poses as on Japanese postcards under cherry trees in bloom at Inokashira Park, at the end she's in a hotel room of, and has switched her traditional clothing for a Western style.
For the series « The World Is Beautiful », Mario A. borrowed the title of Albert Renger-Patzsch's book « Die Welt ist schön », one of the most representative works of German Neue Sachlichkeit movement (New Objectivity from the end of the 20's). Though, Mario A. decided to give up with the black and white used by Renger-Patzsch (as in « ma poupée japonaise ») and chose colour photography for a « new objectivity in a new context ». Thus, he shows his point of view on Japanese culture, which is also a questioning on the possibility of representing it beyond the exotic stereotypes built by the Occident.
For Mario A.: « an idea takes over the form - the artificial theory as radical anti-aesthetics' version must be pushed ad absurdum. »
Part of the 13 images of the series is exhibited as big size DIASEC®.
« ma poupée japonaise » (2002)
Tokyo 2004, Museum of Contemporary Art, « Dolls of Innocence », 45.000 visitors were attracted and astonished by the 38 images of Mario A.'s « ma poupée japonaise » series.
If Mario A's Japanese doll looks disturbingly real, that's because she is, wrote Monty Monty diPietro in Japan Times.
First images of « ma poupée japonaise » show an apparently dismembered model (Sachiko Hara) lying in a big suitcase, eyes closed. When she awakens, Hara is dressed in a schoolgirl's uniform and taken out for a drive in a convertible through the streets of Berlin, and later to a café. The whirlwind tour also takes Hara to Tokyo, where she is installed in the famous « Matsuya » Ginza department-store window and laid on a love-hotel bed, all the while with a wooden smile on her clean, white face. Then Hara gets depressed, and finally becomes hysterical. Now there are dark circles under her eyes, and even a trip to a Nagano onsen does not seem to improve her temperament. Finally she is chucked into a pool of water, and sinks peacefully to the bottom.
This work is a cross-cultural homage to Hans Bellmer, a Surrealist who fled Nazis' Germany with a suitcase containing one of the anatomically correct young female dolls he crafted over the course of his truly weird life. Mario says he was inspired to undertake the current project by a suitcase he found in a Berlin market, a big, old bag that suggested Bellmer's own travel. « ma poupée japonaise » is also a metaphor for Mario's relationship with Hara, he was once romantically involved with.
A selection of 12 images is presented here.
« Maurizio Cattelan », from: « 01.09.01.-11. death of www.mauriziocattelan.net » (2002)
« Maurizio Cattelan » is a unique sculpture that has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Tokyo and at the Berlin Biennale (in 2006).
On April 1st 2002, Mario A. sent an e-mail with the obituary announcement: « Maurizio Cattelan is dead ». Although quickly detected, the joke succeeded in plunging the art world for a brief moment, into big confusion.
Mario's approach is the same as the « parasite », which would try, by adoration of the Other and by identification, to finally take its place.
The body of work « 01.09.01.-11. death of www.mauriziocattelan.net » falls under the new context of September 11th 2001's immediate future and World Trade Center attacks. Mario A. leaves private sphere to enter political and social one. Importance of the identity and origins of the artist (« ROBERTO » Rome - Berlin - Tokyo) is fundamental in understanding his work.
« picabia.com / N.R.P. (New Radical Painting)» (2006)
« Picabia.com » (2000 - ...) project consists in imitating Duchamp's ready made, by signing with the name of 20th century Dada artist, Francis Picabia, a painting, adding « .com ». Raising the problems of copyright, parasite action of Mario A. reverse the master/slave relation. It also settles the basis of a new radical and scandalous critic aiming to abolish the foundations of contemporary art .
For « la donna è mobile », the artist decided to put on unlimited silent auction the signed painting and to transfer the integrality of the amount of money to a charity, the certificate being a testimonial of the piece. Copyright as well as resale royalty are in the middle of the questions raised by the project.
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