Never one to do things by half-measures, Maurizio Cattelan has summoned the golden gods for his latest show at Gagosian London. Invoking equal parts metal and mettle, Bones reflects on the tribulations of modern life by defacing sheets of 24-karat gold with gunfire and reimagining Greek mythology’s figures and fables.
The Milanese mischief-maker's best-known works are perhaps America (2016), a golden toilet which he invited the public to defecate in, and Comedian (2019), a banana that has been eaten as many times as it has been auctioned. Given his previous works’ penchant for being attacked (America was even stolen when exhibited at Blenheim Palace), Cattelan has jumped the gun with this show, literally, shooting the exhibits before they even go on display. The six wounded gold surfaces on display are a testament to the indexical remnant of violence. Their pristine finishes have not just been nicked, but quite emphatically scarred by the shellfire, and as you inspect the works, the opulent reflection of Mayfair that stares back at you becomes suddenly warped by these lesions.
The pieces are guarded over by Notre Dame (2025), a sculpture inspired by Cattelan’s desire to endow an object with “a mythic presence and the familiarity of history”. The ominous work, a marble boulder with protruding horns, resembles a long-lost homage to some sort of bull-like deity. Although the pieces were produced well before President Trump decided to plunge global markets into freefall, the juxtaposition of the desecrated gold and the bull, an animal heavily associated with the testosterone-fuelled culture of Wall Street, takes on an eerily prophetic quality given the recent financial chaos.
The poster campaign for the exhibition, dotted around various central London locations, combines these themes of contemporary money problems and ancient mythology. One such poster sees the titan Atlas, condemned to hold up the skies for eternity, reimagined as a 9 to 5 white-collar worker. Another invokes Sisyphus, as a woman struggles to force her weekly shopping trolley up a treacherous incline.
The metaphorical devices Cattelan use throughout Bones highlight the gargantuan scale of modern problems but offer little in terms of modern solutions. The helplessness of it all likens Cattelan himself to the protagonist of Deaf (2025), the show’s final exhibit. Hidden away in the back room, a skeleton in a balaclava sits in a glass bottle strumming a guitar. He is afforded a tall pedestal for his zany little performance but ultimately pales in comparison to the shitstorm of exploding gold going on outside. Sound familiar?
Bones is showing at Gagosian Davies Street until May 24th.
