maurizio cattelan

Mini-me, Maurizio Cattelan, 1999


Maurizio Cattelan Once, a long time ago when I was in Italy, I
was working as a cleaning person in a laundry, and they found me
washing my own laundry at work. They said, 'What are you doing
here?' And I said, 'Washing! Washing my laundry! It's my uniform!
Where else am I going to do it?' They fired me. This was one of
the first times that I got fired. Another time was when I was
working in the church of Saint Anthony in Padua. I was working in
the gift shop selling little figurines of Saint Anthony, postcards and
so on. I was around thirteen at the time and was with a bunch of
friends. So we were taking a break and laughing. I had drawn
moustaches on the little statues. And when the priests found them,
they came straight to me, they didn't even ask the other twenty
kids who were working with me. Basically they knew it had to be
Maurizio's fault. So they came up to me and said, 'Maurizio. Why?'
Eventually, I learned to avoid being fired. By my third job, before
they fired me, I fired myself.

Nancy Spector And where was this?

Maurizio Cattelan In Italy. I worked in a morgue, and I was fed
up with it. I found a doctor who was willing to help me. In Italy we
have a system that if you are sick and can't work, your company
has to pay your salary anyway. Not bad. I was paying the doctor,
and he was giving me days off. I took about six months off; it was
fantastic. I was so young and the work was horrible. It's not written
anywhere that you have to work. It's not written that someone has
to pay because you can't work or because you don't want to work.
But that's life. I have always found a way to get things done. When
I was working, I was also going to school at night so my days were
often thirteen hours long. When I turned eighteen, I realized that
you need time for friends, for girlfriends, you need to have a normal
life. So basically I arrived at this line of work (making art) by
escaping from other jobs. Art gave me my time back. And it is not
so bad, but now I have to find ways to escape art.