The article deals with the creative activity of one of the most famous modern Italian artist – Maurizio Cattelan (b. 1960), who is known as a joker, absurdist and provocateur due to his paradoxical and shoking art objects and eccentric performances. The article discusses the most significant Cattelan’s works from early (“Bidibidobidiboo”, 1996; “La Nona ora”, 1999; “Him”, 2001, etc.) to recent (“America”, 2016; “Commedian”, 2019). The observations made allow us to conclude that in the work of the postmodernist Cattelan, permeated with irony, allusions and quotations found their reflection the tradition of avant-garde art of the beginning of the 20th century and first of all the tradition of Dadaism with its aesthetic radicalism, shocking and ready-made, which as an art direction proper did not last long but laid the foundation for the art of conceptualism.
irony; self-irony; provocative art; performance; installation; conceptualism; Dada traditions; postmodernism.