Maurizio Cattelan (b. 1960)

“Cattelan’s sculpture of a rubber boot stretched tautly over the bust of a human head, which he describes as a self-portrait, suggests a range of psychologically charged meanings. Recalling 1930s Surrealist objects, the work combines two familiar forms in a way that makes them both seem troubling and strange. The outline of a face beneath the suffocating rubber conveys an image of confinement and torture. At the same time, the work echoes an S-M mask, eroticizing workaday footwear and drawing out the violent imagery’s sexual undertones. As an abstract depiction of authority and domination, Cattelan’s work alludes to Renato Bertelli’s famous Profilo continuo del Duce (Continuous Profile of Mussolini, 1933), a lathed form depicting the Fascist leader’s distinctive profile from every angle, as if his face were somehow stretched around a pillar. Yet in the ridiculous configuration of the boot’s sole rising above the head like absurd plumage, Cattelan’s sculpture balances its fraught associations with characteristic humor.”
- WS, N. Spector, ed., Maurizio Cattelan: All, New York, 2011, p. 240