L.O.V.E. è l’opera pubblica contemporanea più iconica di Milano. Una mano di 5 metri d’altezza con il dito medio alzato, realizzato in marmo di Carrara, in dialogo con il Palazzo Mezzanotte, la Borsa di Milano. Nel 2010 Cattelan inaugurò quest’opera simbolica nel periodo buio della crisi economica mondiale. Il mercato mandava a quel paese la città di Milano e il mondo: un atto controverso, drammatico e ironico nello stesso tempo, posto al centro di Milano per fare riflettere la cittadinanza.
Maurizio Cattelan’s practice is steered by an irreverent wit and a provocative drive to reexamine cultural figures and institutions, including the art world itself. Working across hyperrealistic sculpture, installation, performance, curating and publishing, he deconstructs ideas of context and value, revealing their often irrational roots. Taxidermy animals, wax effigies and loaded everyday objects recur as devices through which he probes authority, religion, history and the production of art itself.
Self-taught, he began his career in the late 1980s and quickly emerged as one of the most singular Italian artists of his generation. He has participated in multiple editions of the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial, and has held major solo exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée du Louvre and the Menil Collection in Houston. With Pierpaolo Ferrari he co-founded the magazine Toiletpaper in 2010. He lives and works between New York and Milan.