Maurizio Cattelan Launches Three-Week Phone Confessional
The project includes 666 miniature versions of one of the artist's most famous works, La Nona Ora, and concludes spectacularly April 23
In 1999, Maurizio Cattelan released La Nona Ora, a life-sized wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II being struck down by a meteorite. The controversial work garnered immediate fame. In evidence of its enduring import, Avant Arte has produced a limited run of 666 hand-painted miniature resin version of La Nona Ora, which became available on April 2. But it’s Cattelan’s accompanying three-week “confessional” performance art piece that could really be an attention magnet over the coming weeks.
Cattelan’s interactive interpretation of the traditional Catholic confession will be personally curated by the artist. Individuals seeking “absolution” are currently free to offer their confessions via freephone in the US or WhatsApp worldwide, with Cattelan hand-picking a select few to make their confessions on a livestream on April 23. The submission deadline is April 22. Mazdak Sani, CEO of Avant Arte, described the project as thus: “Few works have been consecrated in the collective imagination quite like La Nona Ora. It has been an honour to work with Maurizio to resurrect it this Easter—its second coming as an edition of 666 felt almost predestined.”
It will be especially interesting to hear who the provocateur deems most in need of forgiveness: the livestream brims with the possibility of humor, shock, pathos, surprise angles on the human spirit, and what some may well label heresy. Although the force of numbers adds a degree of anonymity, the callers’ apparent lack of concern for keeping their own secrets in a public space gives a whiff of the personal craving for peace that is inherent in the human need to confess.
Even the selling of the La Nona Ora miniatures offers an element of creative commerce iconoclasm. Rather than seeking the highest bid the art market will bear, the sculptures are available for a fixed price, but by lottery. The winners of the chance opportunity for their very own La Nona Ora will be notified on April 23.
