Maurizio Cattelan. La trahison des images

Maurizio Cattelan : Betrayal by images. Maurizio Cattelan, an artist born in Padova in 1960, emerged on the Italian artistic stage in the 1990’s. Drawing from reality, his works renew the question of representation by insisting on the illusory power of images. Humour and self-derision are repetitive aspects of his work which enable him to attack the political w'orld, to criticize the artistic domain or to tackle more existential questions such as human destiny. This paper offers a study centered on the illusion produced by these parodies. Thanks to examples shown in perspective with the works of other contemporaries, it means to define the nature of the works produced by the Italian artist. What do they owe to hyperrealism ; what distinguishes them from it ? How' far do they renew the question of reality ?