NOTe defenders of contemporary creation, artists, exhibition curators, curators, directors of museums and institutions, art lovers, gallery owners… are worried about the abuses that the Druet-Cattelan affair is taking. .
The case between Daniel Druet and Maurizio Cattelan concerns eight sculptures that Daniel Druet fashioned at the request of Maurizio Cattelan and his gallery between 1999 and 2006, and of which Daniel Druet now claims exclusive paternity.
Single author
According to him, the execution of the wax models would grant him the status of sole author of these works. This without taking into account Maurizio Cattelan’s artistic approach as a whole or his multiple artistic interventions in various contexts which have made him famous, beyond these eight sculptures.
This case, the hearing of which was held on May 13 in Paris, has given rise to numerous debates, often with a reactionary tenor.
Beyond the fight of one man against another, of one technique against another, of one school against another, it is indeed the question of the paternity – even the validity – of the art that is at the heart of this dispute, and of what is at work today.
We understand, reading the comments that followed the article published in the magazine M the world of Friday, April 29, that contemporary creation is still debated and arouses many fantasies, shortcuts, and a priori reducers.
Contempt
These debates do not take into account the creative process of an artist like Maurizio Cattelan and of conceptual artists in general. Worse, they “deal” with the inconsistency of contemporary art compared to a more traditional art, guaranteeing know-how.
Daniel Druet’s quest for recognition as the exclusive author of the works imagined by Maurizio Cattelan opens the door to the disqualification of conceptual art
We are confronted once again, and as so often in the history of art, with a great ignorance and contempt for the various forms that living creation can take, which challenges us to the highest degree.
Because this debate goes beyond Daniel Druet and Maurizio Cattelan. It concerns many players in the art world and first and foremost artists, in their great diversity. We have all exhibited, watched, studied, criticized, commented on, published the work of Maurizio Cattelan, an artist who has been active for over thirty years, whom we respect as a peer, beyond the tastes and divisions of the cultural sector which is ours.
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