The print that Monograph offers collectors a perfect example of Cattelan’s approach. In 1998 he arranged for an actor dressed in a Pablo Picasso mask and striped jumper to greet visitors to New Yorks MOMA. Cattelan was satirising the postmodern museum and its similarity to a cultural Disneyland. As Cattelan observed at the time: “The public, coming to see an exhibition of Jackson Pollock, understood so well my concept that they thought it was Jackson Pollock himself welcoming the public!”

Self-taught and without formal artistic training, Cattelan developed an unconventional approach to art-making that drew as much from everyday life as from art history. He has frequently described exhibitions themselves as his education, using the gallery and museum as sites for experimentation, provocation and play. Since emerging on the international art scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he has cultivated a reputation as both an incisive social commentator and the art world’s ultimate prankster.

Throughout his career, Cattelan has employed hyperrealistic sculpture, performance, installation and publishing projects to challenge accepted notions of authority, value, politics, religion and celebrity. His works often incorporate dark humour and visual irony, transforming familiar figures and symbols into surprising and frequently controversial artworks. Rather than offering straightforward criticism, Cattelan’s practice exposes the contradictions inherent within contemporary society and the cultural institutions that shape it.

His international reputation was firmly established during the 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in his being named the most powerful figure in ArtReview’s influential 2004 ranking of the contemporary art world’s leading movers and shakers. The recognition reflected not only the visibility of his work but also his profound impact on artistic discourse, curatorial practice and the wider cultural conversation surrounding contemporary art.

Cattelan has exhibited extensively at many of the world’s most prestigious museums and institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Guggenheim Museum, the Musée du Louvre in Paris and major museums throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. His landmark 2011 retrospective, All, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York brought together the full range of his practice and confirmed his status as one of the defining artists of his generation.

Despite often being described as a provocateur, Cattelan’s work is notable for its intelligence and self-awareness. Rather than attempting to stand outside the art world, he consistently acknowledges his place within it, using wit, parody and theatricality to reveal its contradictions. His works tease, unsettle and entertain, yet they avoid the simplistic assumption that art can exist independently of the economic and cultural systems that sustain it. It is precisely this balance of critique and participation that has made Cattelan one of the most distinctive artistic voices of the past three decades.

Today, Cattelan’s work is held in many of the world’s leading public and private collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Pinault Collection and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, among numerous others. His enduring influence stems from his ability to combine conceptual sophistication with broad cultural appeal, creating artworks that remain simultaneously humorous, shocking, accessible and intellectually compelling.