NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian announced the opening of Sunday, Maurizio Cattelan’s first solo gallery exhibition in more than two decades and his solo debut at Gagosian. Similar to America—a functional solid gold toilet that he installed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 2016—Cattelan’s new project, which is on view at the gallery’s 522 West 21st Street location, once again challenges the contradictions of American society and culture, and touches on sensitive issues faced by the world at large.

In a new installation, Sunday (2024), Cattelan compounds the response to economic inequality embodied by America (2016), using precious metal to deconstruct the country’s relationship to the accessibility of weapons (a condition against which privilege affords no defense). Panels of stainless steel, plated in 24-karat gold, have been “modified” by gunfire. The components’ formerly smooth surfaces are left riddled with craters and holes, evoking a history of guns in art that stretches from Edouard Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1868–69) to Chris Burden’s Shoot (1971) and William Burroughs’s shotgun paintings.

Visitors to Gagosian’s 21st Street location are immediately confronted by a towering, 17-foot-tall wall of the gilded panels that stretches some 68 feet wide. In front of it is November (2024), a marble fountain that portrays a slouching figure urinating on the ground. Cattelan characterizes the work as “a monument to marginality,” an image of a reality that we habitually ignore. Echoing Manneken Pis (1619), a famous public sculpture of a boy urinating into a fountain, it presents the viewer with an uncomfortable contravention of societal norms. But, as Bonami demands, “If you’re free to buy an assault rifle in a department store, what’s wrong with pissing in public?”

Cattelan traces the opulent composition of both new works back to the Catholic spiritual tradition in which he was raised, also pointing out that the ease of melting down and reusing gold gives the material a fungible, unfixed nature that allows it to effectively disappear. Even when dealing with such sensitive subjects, however, he remains a “Sunday” artist at heart, avoiding explicit judgment in favor of presenting reality as he observes it.

Born in Padua, Italy, in 1960, Cattelan is one of the most provocative figures in the art world. Often dismissed as a prankster, he is a deeply political artist whose work investigates issues that affect us all. In Sunday, Cattelan affirms his ability to address art history and current affairs simultaneously, presenting them as two parallel but paradoxically convergent tracks. Cattelan is, in the words of the exhibition’s curator Francesco Bonami, “the most famous Italian artist since Caravaggio.” While the claim may seem overblown, the popularity of the artist’s recent exhibitions at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, and the Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, confirm his ability to engage both art-world audiences and a global public.

Cattelan’s exhibition The Third Hand is on view at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, until January 12, 2025. His work is also on view in With My Eyes, the Vatican’s exhibition for the Holy See Pavilion at the 60th Biennale di Venezia, through November 24, 2024.

Maurizio Cattelan was born in Padua, Italy, in 1960, and lives and works in Milan and New York. Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy; and Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich. Exhibitions include Felix, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2002–03); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003); Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2003); Now, Musee d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris/ARC at the Chapelle des Petits Augustins, Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2004); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2007); New Works, Tate Modern, London (2007); Kaputt, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel (2013); Victory Is Not an Option, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, England (2019); and We, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul (2023). In 2011, Cattelan’s work was the subject of All, a retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The Last Judgment, his first solo exhibition in China, was on view at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, from 2021 to 2022. His work has also been featured in the Biennale di Venezia (1993, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2011, and 2024); Manifesta 2, Luxembourg (1998); Istanbul Biennial (1998); and Whitney Biennial, New York (2004). In 2002, Cattelan cofounded the Wrong Gallery, New York, and in 2010, he cofounded Toiletpaper, a biannual visual magazine.