Before the banana: Maurizio Cattelan on postal rounds, morgues and sperm donation
Long before he taped a banana to a wall, Maurizio Cattelan delivered letters, worked with the dead and donated sperm to pay the rent.
The Italian artist set out those early jobs in Berlin in a recent interview with The Guardian, given ahead of a major new show at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, as reported by The Art Newspaper.
The interview included an early CV from his pre-fame years. It lists work as a postman, a mortuary attendant and a sperm donor. He needed the money.
Cattelan is widely known for Comedian, the 2019 work made from a fresh banana fixed to a wall with tape. The piece was first shown at the Art Basel fair in Miami Beach and was widely reported at the time.
The new interview was organised around the forthcoming show at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The museum, which holds Germany's national collection of 20th-century art, is preparing a major presentation of his work.
It is not his first frank press interview in connection with a high-profile work. In August 2019, The Times in London published an interview with Cattelan about his golden loo.
For anyone catching the Berlin show with no background, this fills in the gap. Before the auctions, the headlines and the crowds, there were night shifts, postal rounds and donation clinics.
