A rendering of the High Line billboard by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari.
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: May 31, 2012
After his blockbuster retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York last fall, Maurizio Cattelan, who is just 51, said he was officially retiring from making art. What did that mean, exactly, coming from a jokester like Mr. Cattelan?
One answer comes in the form of a billboard, 75 by 25 feet, at 10th Avenue and West 18th Street in Chelsea, next to the High Line. It is a giant image of a woman’s 10 perfectly manicured and jeweled fingers, detached from their hands, emerging from a vibrant blue velvet background. It was unveiled on Thursday and can be seen from both the elevated pathway and the street.
The billboard is part of a High Line series that began last December with “The First $100,000 I Ever Made,” a blown-up photograph of a real $100,000 bill, the largest denomination the United States government ever printed, by the Los Angeles artist John Baldessari. This new billboard — the fourth — will be on view through June 30.
Mr. Cattelan created the image with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari as part of Toilet Paper, a two-year-old art magazine founded by the two men.
But what about Mr. Cattelan’s supposed retirement? “It’s not like it’s my own,” he said, laughing, about the billboard. “We worked together.” He explained that he is “in between moments,” adding, “I’m missing it, but it’s good to have distance.”
The billboard’s photograph was taken in Milan, and while Mr. Cattelan and Mr. Pierpaolo held casting sessions to find just the pair of hands to shoot, Mr. Cattelan said they happened on an old woman in a bar near the sessions and asked her to pose.
“It’s like a magic trick,” said Cecilia Alemani, director of the public art program at Friends of the High Line. “It’s almost cinematic in its format.”
Mr. Cattelan called the image “Surreal but verging on Pop,” adding that “it’s a bit gory but without the blood.”
But why show just those fingers and not the rest of the hand? “Fingers are something sexual, like penises,” he explained. “It doesn’t always have to be a cigar.”