ToiletPaper Magazine N°18

The eighteenth issue of the surreal and provocative magazine presents 22 new dreamlike (or nightmarish) tableaux vivants, a collection of ribald, funny, absurd, and deviant photographs that questions our contemporary obsession with images.

The design

The Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan loves derision and sparking controversy by creating works intended to challenge the public. Self-taught, he began his career in the late 1980s. His works, which take shape from real-world objects and people, are the result of an irreverent operation against art and institutions. Cattelan opened his own New York gallery, the Wrong Gallery, a space where nothing is sold and which remains permanently closed. Cattelan creates works that always cause a scandal and give rise to all sorts of interpretations, even questioning religion and the sacred, such as La Nona Ora, a life-sized wax effigy of the late Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite. His sculpture "LOVE," exhibited in Milan's Piazza Affari since 2010, provokes the locals and challenges the history of this financial square with a simple gesture (a middle finger).
In January 2012, the Guggenheim Museum in New York presented a 21-year retrospective of his work entitled "Maurizio Cattelan: All." In June 2010, he launched the biannual magazine Toiletpaper with photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari, containing images full of humor and fantasy. Toiletpaper is now a brand that adapts its kitschy images into decorative objects and clothing lines.