Bones is an exhibition of new works by Maurizio Cattelan, opening at Gagosian's Davies Street gallery.
On display are new pierced gold-plated panels, a sculpture comprising a Carrara marble boulder with a pair of horns perched atop a couch, and a sculpture of a guitar-playing skeleton inside a bottle.
Cattelan’s highly provocative juxtapositions of iconoclastic imagery with symbolically charged materials elicit strong, often visceral responses: his work has been attacked, stolen and even eaten.
In Bones, the artist explores the link between creation and destruction using stainless-steel panels coated in 24-karat gold, each pierced by one or two gunshots.
These damaged surfaces symbolise transformation, with the use of large-calibre bullets emphasising each hole as a clear, impactful event.
The simple layout recalls conceptual art and minimalism, focusing on how form interacts with space. Here, destruction opens up new visual possibilities, and the torn panels suggest both relics and ruins. The work also nods to William Burroughs’s shotgun paintings and Gustav Metzger’s auto-destructive art.
