Books by Maurizio Cattelan

Toilet Paper Calendar 2018

by Maurizio Cattelan, Pierpaolo Ferrari

Since its first issue in June 2010, Toilet Paper has created a world that displays ambiguous narratives and a troubling imagination.
It combines the vernacular of commercial photography with twisted narrative tableaux and surrealistic imagery. The result is a publication that is itself a work of art which, through its accessible form as a magazine, and through its wide distribution, challenges the limits of the contemporary art economy.
The 2018 Toilet Paper wall calendar features photographs conceived by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari and taken from their magazine, an image-only publication devoted to the realization of surrealist ideas via commercial photography.

Chromotherapia Feel-Good Color Photography

by Sam Stourdzé, Maurizio Cattelan

Famed Italian visual artist and curator Maurizio Cattelan and curator Sam Stourdzé offer a rereading of the history of color photography through the 20th century into the 21st, and through the works of over 20 artists (as well as the cult images of Toiletpaper) who take us on a journey into vibrant, acidulous worlds.The publication invites us to explore the history of color photography over the whole course of the twentieth century, through the zestful gaze of 19 artists. The tour, in seven chapters, leads us into vibrant, saturated worlds where colour strikes the retina and engages the mind. Often disparaged and rarely taken seriously, color photography has nevertheless allowed photographers to let their hair down, take out their palettes, and repaint the world. Many have freed themselves from the documentary function of the photographic medium to explore the common roots of the image and the imaginary, flirting with pop art, surrealism, bling, kitsch, and the baroque. The conquest of color in photography closely followed the invention of the medium, with the first scientific experiments taking place in the mid-19th century. In 1907, the first industrial color photographic emerged with the autochrome, created by the Lumière brothers. This ushered in a century of chromatic experimentation: from ordinary scenes to philosophical and political reflections, color transcended the status of a mere tool and became a central narrative element.Whether magnifying the details of an everyday scene, redefining codes of beauty in magazines, or capturing committed subjects, color photography offers an intensely chromatic vision of the world. This diversity of gazes and practices bears witness to a common thread: the desire to make us see things differently, by infusing images with the life and emotion that only color can convey.Maurizio Cattelan and Sam Stourdzé revisit the history of colour photography with regard to the 20 issues of the iconic magazine Toiletpaper. Images from Toiletpaper provide a unifying narrative thread, infecting and barging in on the pages of the book and alluding to the book artists' pictures in a way that sets up a dialogue and metaphorically creates an imagined group of iconographic friends.

Made by MSCHF

by Blake Gopnik, Maurizio Cattelan, Lukas Bentel, Kevin Wiesner, Karen Wong, Amy Adler, Lauren Boyle, Natasha Jen, Sean Monahan, Lydia Pang

A comprehensive, irreverent guide to the inner workings of provocative art collective MSCHF

Made by MSCHF is a survey of the work of Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, known for their eclectic projects that critique the very areas of popular culture they inhabit. Ranging from a line of designer handbags only visible under a microscope to an anime dating game that helps players generate a functional tax return, MSCHF's works are incisive, often viral, and always instilled with their unique brand of subversive humor.

Featuring never-before-seen imagery, this book presents case studies that explore twelve of MSCHF's projects in depth, providing readers with a blueprint of how their works are developed from ideation to release. Written by two of the collective's cofounders, the book features an additional six thematic essays and an archive of every MSCHF artwork to date, together revealing the experimental group's range and evolution.

Projects include: Big Red Boot, a pair of cartoonishly large rubber boots; Jesus Shoes, their designer-branded sneakers filled with holy water; ATM Leaderboard, an ATM installed at Art Basel Miami Beach that ranked users by bank balance; and Severed Spots, in which they cut out spots from Damien Hirst prints and sold them as individual art works.