{"id":16355,"date":"2025-10-27T14:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/?post_type=magazine&p=16355"},"modified":"2025-10-27T14:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:04:10","slug":"beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of Yourself: the interview with Maurizio Cattelan about his new book"},"content":{"rendered":"Memory, insecurity, failure and recklessness: these are just some of the concepts that emerged during our conversation with Maurizio Cattelan, protagonist of Beware of Yourself<\/em>, the book edited by Roberta Tenconi and Vicente Todol\u00ed with Tatiana Palenzona, published by Pirelli HangarBicocca and Marsilio Arte and presented to the press on 14 October 2025 in Milan.
\r\n
\r\nNot assignable to any specific publishing category, the volume straddles the line between catalogue raisonn\u00e9, autobiography, personal diary and monograph, containing Cattelan\u2019s reflections on his own history, from his beginnings in the late 1980s to the present day.
\r\n
\r\nIt is a sort of \u201cmental map\u201d in which words alternate with images of the works, exhibitions and projects that have marked the artist\u2019s career. Following the solo exhibition Breath Ghosts Blind<\/em>, held at Pirelli HangarBicocca between 2021 and 2022, and the accompanying catalogue, and after Index<\/em> (2022) \u2013 an anastatic collection of all the interviews conducted by Cattelan over two decades \u2013, Pirelli HangarBicocca and Marsilio Arte have once again turned the spotlight on the work of an artist who never stops questioning himself.
\r\n

THE INTERVIEW WITH MAURIZIO CATTELAN<\/h2>
\r\nThe book, as Roberta Tenconi pointed out during the presentation, was an opportunity to put your words in order, but also to preserve the chaos. You said that it was useful for filling in the gaps in what you don\u2019t remember. Did it help you understand more about your work, or did it bring out other things that you don\u2019t really want to remember?<\/strong>
\r\n
\r\nBoth, but now, looking back, I am very surprised because I wonder where all these things came from. My fear \u2013 or, rather than fear, something that my family probably instilled in me \u2013 is a great insecurity. The desire to prove that I am not what they made me believe I am is something I will never be able to resolve, and the book demonstrates this. Insecurity does not explain the book, but looking back at it, it is surprising how much has been done and how little memory I have of it.
\r\n
\r\nMay I ask why you can\u2019t remember?<\/strong>
\r\n
\r\nI have a forty-year gap. The fact that my memory is so short is both good and bad. It\u2019s bad for those around me, but it can be good because it makes you feel freer, even if, in the end, the issues are the same. We should change the algorithm.
\r\n
\r\nWhen you mentioned insecurity, the word failure came to my mind, a word that has recurred in your words for years. What did it mean to you at the beginning, and what does it mean now?<\/strong>
\r\n
\r\nNot much has changed. I think failure itself is fundamental because it leads you to understand things. It\u2019s a form of learning. It\u2019s a component of all human activities and serves to improve learning, the product, whatever the field. It\u2019s a necessary step.
\r\n
\r\nIs this idea also linked to the concepts of disappearance and absence, which you often address in your work?<\/strong>
\r\n
\r\nThey all go back to my childhood and they all end up in affection: lack of affection, excess of affection. When it\u2019s missing, you compensate with other things. Absence is probably a form of defence against something you\u2019re not given, that you haven\u2019t been given. It\u2019s something you\u2019ve absorbed and today it becomes a preventive form of defence against a possible recurrence of that negative thing.
\r\n

BEWARE OF YOURSELF BY MAURIZIO CATTELAN<\/h2>
\r\nIn the book, the word \u201csconsiderazione\u201d made me think of recklessness, but in a less clear-cut way. Is that right?<\/strong>
\r\n
\r\nI am reckless in not thoroughly evaluating what an action might cause. I evaluate it after the action has been taken. An action may be reckless, but it certainly leads to something that I consider a positive result.
\r\n
\r\nAlso in your art?<\/strong>
\r\n
\r\nOnce you have done a work and that work has been absorbed, repeating it would not help you learn anything new. So, in your next work, you try to raise the bar, to put yourself in a position of insecurity in order to do something risky.
\r\n
\r\nAre all these methods the way you have chosen to live and remain in the art world?<\/strong>
\r\n
\r\nThere is a lot of talk about strategy, but I have always improvised quite a bit. I\u2019ve always put one foot in front of the other, one brick on top of another. I move by units, not by volumes. To build a house, you have to start from the ground up. My way of building this house has been rather traditional; I didn\u2019t start with the roof or the second floor. The results would have been interesting, but maybe the house wouldn\u2019t have stood. It would have been a slightly more abstract house.
\r\n
\r\nInterview by Arianna Testino<\/strong>","protected":false},"featured_media":16337,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categorie_magazine":[341],"class_list":["post-16355","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie_magazine-books-from-marte"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBeware of Yourself: the interview with Maurizio Cattelan about his new book - Marsilio Arte<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Almost 40 years of conversations, interviews and writings form the news volume published by Pirelli HangarBicocca and Marsilio Arte\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beware of Yourself: the interview with Maurizio Cattelan about his new book\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Almost 40 years of conversations, interviews and writings form the news volume published by Pirelli HangarBicocca and Marsilio Arte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Marsilio Arte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cattelan_PHB_Firmacopie_Ph_Lorenzo_Palmieri_LOW_004-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/\",\"name\":\"Beware of Yourself: the interview with Maurizio Cattelan about his new book - Marsilio Arte\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cattelan_PHB_Firmacopie_Ph_Lorenzo_Palmieri_LOW_004-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-27T13:04:10+00:00\",\"description\":\"Almost 40 years of conversations, interviews and writings form the news volume published by Pirelli HangarBicocca and Marsilio Arte\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/beware-of-yourself-book-maurizio-catellan-interview\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cattelan_PHB_Firmacopie_Ph_Lorenzo_Palmieri_LOW_004-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cattelan_PHB_Firmacopie_Ph_Lorenzo_Palmieri_LOW_004-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"Il firmacopie di Beware of Yourself al Pirelli HangarBicocca di Milano, 2025. 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