Maurizio Cattelan Turned a Banana Into Art. Next Up: Guns

“They’re works that take on a different weight being shown in New York,” the show’s curator, Francesco Bonami, commented by phone. “Maurizio is a political artist — not political in the sense that he’s presenting a position, but political in that he deals with society’s problems and current events, and he always touches a raw nerve.” He added, “We’ll see how Americans take to this show.”

The opening comes after Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill that would permit some school staff to carry concealed handguns, but as Cattelan commented, “Every moment seems like the right moment to talk about violence, because every day there’s more news about violence in the papers.”

In the monastery park, Cattelan critiqued modern materialism: “Today, sacrament has been replaced by shopping,” he said, contending that there’s greater happiness to be found in a spartan life. (He rides his bike everywhere, and takes his near-daily swims in a municipal pool.) But he isn’t afraid to play both sides. This show represents the first time he’s agreed to collaborate with the mega-gallery owned by Larry Gagosian — the dealer who has referred to art as “money on the walls,” and is probably the man most responsible for transforming the art world into the art market. But, as Bonami pointed out, who else could sponsor the production of a colossal wall of gold shootings?

Cattelan, saying the moment had arrived for a collaboration he had long evaded, noted: “I’m doing a project with Larry Gagosian but I haven’t signed anything,” and “I’m a free agent.” His previous New York gallery show, in 2000, was at the influential but less blue-chip Marian Goodman Gallery.

Gagosian gallery declined requests for information about the works’ fabrication cost or their selling price, but every piece in the show will be available for purchase. The gallery said prices will be made available upon the show’s opening.

Cattelan’s work hit its auction high price in May 2016 when “Him,” an infamous wax and resin sculpture of Hitler on his knees, sold at Sotheby’s for $17.2 million, or about $22 million today.