IRONY AS A FORM OF EXPRESSION IN CONTEMPORARY ART: MAURIZIO CATTELAN AND WORKS

Abstract

At the end of 2019, Maurizio Cattelan, represented by the Perrotin Gallery (Galerie Perrotin) at the Art Basel Miami art fair, had great speculation that the banana attached to the wall with tape was sold for $ 120,000 and then that banana was eaten as a performance by another artist (David Datuna). The work, which at first glance seems to be an attempt that mocks the audience and leaked from a magazinish area, shows that the subject is not exactly like that when Cattelan's general understanding of art is considered. The work, named Comedian by Cattelan, as an ironic form of expression, proceeded with a process that he wanted and gained a place for himself and created a great spreading and discussion area on social media. Comedian, which brings with it a total questioning of contemporary art, carries the understanding of art as a black humor or irony when viewed as a reading proposal with Cattelan's other works and thus requires a different form of questioning about the truth of art. In particular, in today's neoliberal capitalist society, which is called post-truth and where we lose what is right and wrong, the Comedian (and Cattelan's other works) has the character of the irresistible lightness of irony and stands before us with Cattelan's childish mischief telling that the king is naked. This approach, which is an important key to the relations between reality and truth, provides an opportunity for us to reconsider the nature of art. In this article, Cattelan's ironic form of expression will be examined through his works, and his position, standing in a knife-edge position and separated by a thin line, will be discussed. This form of expression, which contains the genes of a Dadaist understanding in general and a Duchampist understanding in particular, and brings the discussion area opened by Duchamp's urinal (Fountain) to the present, will be opened to discussion by making various connections, as well as its position in the past and the present.