Quotes from Maurizio Cattelan

Sometimes I see myself as a locked box - very detached from myself and others. But I feel lucky, because I am the owner of my time, and you cannot buy time.

When you place art in the shops, it's a way to make it more accessible.

Damien Hirst knows how to drive super-fast cars... I love my bicycle.

You don't wanna see your work, because you might find out that you do not like it.

Warhol was proof that you can be revolutionary without being militant.

Art is about forgetting all these feelings, good and bad, and trying to understand what acts will last longer, which symbols will remain in history. It's a question of perspective: The further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems.

I would never make fun of anyone who is obviously disabled who cannot defend himself, like Donald Trump.

Art should be able to be innovative without compromising itself. That's why I believe artists should have bigger preoccupations than checking the price tags on their work or becoming curators' darlings.

Contemporary art will never achieve the audience of football, pop music, or television, so I think we should stop comparing its possible area of influence to that of big mass-media events.

Every work of art is a great promise of escape and, therefore, like an open invitation.

I won't say I'm not fascinated by the way advertising works. I like the sleekness. But a picture in advertising doesn't last too long. They have to work for 30 seconds. And I'd like to reach at least two minutes. This is my goal: to break that two-minute record.

I don't like the idea of having a public image. In the end, you have an image of someone, which becomes true whether it is or not.

Based on my experience, it's considerably difficult to force a donkey into doing something it perceives to be dangerous for whatever reason.

Every morning, we choose between milk or tea or coffee. Usually, I know what I like, but I don't rule out changing my idea sometimes. The editing process is one of the most important parts in everyday life. The same is with my work: mistakes are part of the decision-making process.

Made in Catteland is a project that aims to overcome the boundaries of the work of art as we're used to thinking of it: exploring new possibilities of reaching the audience through the creation of new forms of art.

I get up in the morning and get to bed at night, and between, I bring equivalent dedication to everything I do, with a horror of the inaccurate and the half-baked.

Provocations are like a Molotov cocktail. They only work one time out of ten, but when it works, it can also be dangerous for the arm that is throwing it. It's the price that has to be paid.

There are times when being scandalous or provocative can help bring focus to issues of major concern.

Work was always necessary to survive. Then I decided the goal should be to survive without working. But now I have much more work than I had before. Hunting for freedom, I've found the real prison. but at least it's a prison I've chosen for myself.

Sooner or later, all magazines end up in the toilet.

Never give an artist like me carte blanche: he would think it's simply toilet paper.

I think that laughter and death are closely related: comedy is the quintessential human reaction to the fear of death. It's probably linked with the fact that we are the only animals who know we must die.

If you are searching to figure out what is true and what is not, you will have a sad life. It means you have too much time, and you should do a hobby - like collecting art.

It's even more of a torture not to work than to work.