Into the Archives: A 2007 Email Exchange of Maurizio Cattelan and Takashi Murakami

In honor of Whitewall’s 20th anniversary, we’re diving back into the archives—revisiting the conversations that defined our early years. Originally published in Spring 2007, in our fourth issue featuring Tony Oursler on the cover, this exchange between Maurizio Cattelan and Takashi Murakami reads today like a time capsule of a rapidly shifting art world. Through a candid email dialogue, the two artists move between humor and critique, discussing everything from empty studios and sleeping bags to the evolving economics of art—proving that even two decades ago, they were already anticipating the future.

MAURIZIO AND TAKASHI: TWO MONSTERS UNLEASHED

The Villain: The Art Conspiracy
The Hero: The art conspiracy…
The Accomplice: Emmanuel Perrotin
The Plot: Maurizio Cattelan (The Burglar) and Takashi Murakami (The Forger) are now celebrities in their hometowns and around the world for having shaken up the art gang and escaped its despotic laws. Kept apart by geographical distance, the unlikely duo sets up a secret meeting online to elaborate on their unconventional approaches and unorthodox art practices. While evoking sleeping bags and masks, fears and authority, their mutual inspiration is about to lead them to potential future crimes.

Let’s Talk About the Weather

FROM: Maurizio Cattelan (MAURIZ_09)
TO: Takashi Murakami (TAK-TAK)

Hello, Takashi.
How do we start this?
British people usually find it ice-breaking to talk about the weather.
Here in New York it looks sunny and not too cold yet.
How about Tokyo?
Ciao ciao,
m

FROM: TAK-TAK
TO: MAURIZ_09

Hello, Maurizio.
Tokyo this summer has had a lot of crazy storms, and we have had many rains — today it’s not so bad but yesterday we had some water damage at my studio…
t

MAURIZ_09
In the end you gave the right answer to a question I’ve been asked many times: there’s something good in not having a studio. Even though sometimes I felt I had some water damages to my head. I am only kidding, Takashi, I feel sorry.
Is everything OK now?

TAK-TAK
Thank you.
During my production for the upcoming solo show I’ve bought 2 vacuums for my studio that suck the water just in case, but one already broke from overuse, smoke coming out from the motor…
Speaking of studio, I’ve also just moved my studio in NY, and it has also experienced some water damage — probably you are right, it’s much better to keep your studio in your head?
Your comment on water damage on your head reminded me of something. A while ago, I remember you were swimming regularly (when we met long ago in Lyon?). Do you still swim?
Also, how much time do you spend a year in NY?

Takashi Murakami Asks About Spending Time in New York

MAURIZ_09
Yes, I do swim everyday. I also went before meeting you online this morning. It is something I keep doing and which seems to give a certain rhythm to any of my days wherever I am; it also feels like a space of complete privacy where, rarely, people can enter. I actually can’t remember if it is something I ever told anyone during an interview.
It is a little bit like my house, where I accept very few selected guests: my house, it is something that cannot be recorded probably just because I do not feel it is interesting for anyone. It is completely empty, as you might have heard. But I read somewhere that also your house is empty and that you carry around a sleeping bag, even to museums and galleries during the installations. Are they just rumors?
I do spend quite a lot of time in NY. But even I never thought it was so important where I am: all of my work is done via phone or e-mail and nowadays you can easily find a connection and a telephone line to share your thoughts. That said, I still consider NY a great catalyst of today’s imaginary, an open office where everybody is in constant movement and also a trap for our deepest paranoias. Don’t you agree that when they say that NY never stops they miss the point? It is the people in NY that can’t escape their fears and can’t stop running away.

“Your lifestyle sounds like a fantasy to me,”

—Takashi Murakami

TAK-TAK
Once I saw a documentary-like TV drama about Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs, and your description of your room made me think of the image of Steve Jobs as if in Zen meditation, all alone in his stark, empty room.
Hearing your explanation of your sense of private time and space, I realize that our lifestyles are almost at complete opposites. I literally don’t have any private space, and yes, I still do sleep in a sleeping bag — or sometimes not even with a sleeping bag, just wherever there is a floor space. My favorite situation is when I sleep on a Styrofoam, and when I wake up my work is right in front of me, allowing me to connect the work and the dream I just had.
I have no conscious sense of sharing or not sharing my space, as where I live is filled with people I work with, and everyday I am surrounded by my staff. They are strongly linked with my life — they sometimes even come wake me up for the morning meeting if I’m late. So your lifestyle sounds like a fantasy to me.
But hearing your analysis of NY and its relationship with the city, I remember seeing a Woody Allen movie when I was in high school and imagining how wonderful it must be in NY. However, I couldn’t stay in NY because of its cold…
The other day I saw your multiple, Wrong Gallery, at an art merchandise store in Amsterdam. The spring on that door, is it custom-made or something store-bought?
I’m sure this is the kind of question you get from a student during a lecture, but just wanted to know…

MAURIZ_09
I’ve never planned in advance my way of living just like I’ve never planned in advance to become an artist. It just came naturally as a constant trial to set up my own rules for my life. Art at one point became a gap in which I could be able to follow my own laws without someone telling me what do and when, a space of freedom to escape power and authority.
But you see, when I was telling you about private spaces, I never intended to say that I do things by myself — I completely understand your will to have people and thoughts and minds around you. I do the same; I have many accomplices to my work. And always felt it was necessary to me. I can’t really do anything by myself. Maybe it is just a way to learn more from people who know how to do things better than me, or maybe a way to share responsibility and split the loss.
The mini version of the Wrong Gallery was made by Cerealart, a company that invited us to make an art toy. The Wrong Gallery evolved in time: it started as a joke and than became something serious. It started in New York with Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick and after a few years we were evicted from the building. The Tate in London asked us to move it to London in their permanent collection. We loved the idea of changing the context and to test the format in a different situation. But the structure did not really change; even there, we are parasites and we do not buy or sell, we just rely on others. Actually the whole idea of the Wrong Gallery started through someone else when we were dreaming of opening a sort of stray-dog space in Chelsea and Jeffrey Deitch said “You should call it the Wrong gallery.” It started from a title, as many of the things I do, and we loved the idea of people saying, “it’s a great show but it’s in the wrong gallery.” And the same in a way for the mini-Wrong Gallery: we thought that it could be great if anyone could play at being a dealer at home. Probably it is a sign of the times: in the ‘60s every man could have become an artist and now everyone wants to make money.
I am curious, how do you title your works and shows?
I always loved the “Little Boy”.

“I’ve never planned in advance to become an artist,”

—Maurizio Cattelan

TAK-TAK
Having done this strange dialogue (putting our thoughts in e-mail format, and making it a conversation — and as you know, each of us took about 20 minutes each time to respond) so far, I am actually pleasantly surprised by your earnest, serious answers to my questions. It is because they are in the opposite direction from the sort of elusiveness I feel from your works. I probably
must have been misinterpreting you all this time. That is, as I cannot read English very well, all these years when I would open your catalogues, I have been mostly just looking at the images of your works over and over, and it was from those images that I got the impression that your works are rather evasive.
But I can imagine that you may have been explaining your concepts for works and creative motivations thoroughly in your texts, such as introductions or critical essays. (Of course I still haven’t read your books or understood their contents, so it’s only an assumption…).
Because I’m not so comfortable with my English, I usually have very little opportunity in obtaining the audience’s affinity through literal/verbal communications. For instance, I have absolutely no social communication through parties, etc., which (at least in my imagination) must be rather important in the West, and I only look at the “pictures”, like a child, in art magazines. So all my understanding of contexts, trends, and meanings come from nothing more than my assumptions.
Conversely, in order to present my own thoughts, it requires a cumbersome process, and that is what my curated shows in the past several years are all about. The shows and the catalogues for the shows like “Superflat” and “Little Boy” were projects where I have concentrated on how best my concepts and roadmaps could be understood by the Western audience.
Therefore, the title “Little Boy” also came out of focusing on how to escape from the situation of the near breakdown in communication and to deepen the understanding.
However, many of the titles for my other works are often based on Japanese language and domestic sensibility. DOB might be symbolic of such process. The name of my character DOB actually comes from a made-up word without any meaning, a combination of two punch-line phrases from a Japanese cartoon and a comedian, which became Dobozite Dobozite Oshiyamanbe. In Japanese dobozite could be read as a northern dialect word for “why?”
(The main character of the comic cartoon, Inakappe Taisho, comes to a city from a countryside), and Oshiyamanbe is the name of a region in Hokkaido but also could imply female genitalia (but very twisted and hard to get to), which a comedian used as his popular punch-line phrase on TV. I have presented the work to the Japanese art scene in a seeming context of language art by taking this incredibly domestic made-up word and spelling it out in alphabets. It was sort of a criticism toward the Japanese art world of that time, where language art was extremely popular and everyone was translating Japanese phrases into English, incorrectly at that, and it was embarrassing. (Please note, though, that it is NOT a criticism against the Western language art — a curator somewhere misunderstood in the past and wrote that “Murakami is critical of language art,” which has caused me troubles.) And the title of my paintings with DOB, the character with the convoluted, domestic theme, is “And then, and then and then and then and then.” That is, don’t look for a profound meaning, because thoughts and meanings are just a compilation of domestic values. The title comes from such a message. (Oh boy, it’s so hard to explain!)

“Probably you are right. It’s much better to keep your studio in your head.”

—Takashi Murakami

Maurizio Cattelan Thinks About The Audience

MAURIZ_09
This is interesting. I have never tried to get a real affinity with the audience but maybe to initiate some reaction. And I understand your will to be able to.
But I never really felt it that important to diffuse or give to the audience my own interpretation to my works. For me any point of view and any position is accepted and valid. And any time I am happy and scared to hear what the people think, I am knotted in contradictions, just like everyone. Maybe my works can look very evasive because as I always tried to escape and be someone else. I am not different from the other people and I wear different masks everyday.
If I played serious this morning I might be funnier in the afternoon; of course, it just depends on the situation. We all need to play a role, even though I still haven’t understood what is mine.
Ciao, Takashi.
I loved this conversation.
Thank you.
m

“I read that you carry around a sleeping bag. Is it just a rumor?”

—Maurizio Cattelan

TAK-TAK
There was a mention of people wanting to make money earlier, but recently a friend of mine has been making small money or trading by regularly posting his used books and tools on Yahoo auction or Amazon.
Internet communication has changed the concept of distribution and even the bases of money-making.
He applies the money he makes off of this trading for living, and volunteers his work hours to helping others.
The idea of making money has become much more complex than when pop culture emerged in the ’60s, and you are no longer happy because you have made money.
In this context, the communication in the art world still leans heavily on the very old structure of going through galleries in terms of distribution. However, I think that the recent soaring in prices is related to the fundamental change in the structure of money-making described above. That is, the extreme concentration of the entertainment onto computer desktops has been rapidly completed through distribution of music and images via Internet, for free (pirate downloading) or for a fee, and perhaps it is becoming unsustainable unless people start to focus on other entertainment.
And perhaps as one such other form of entertainment, the one -on-one communication with an art dealer, however backwards in time, or because it is backwards, is grabbing the limelight now. And of course, the limelight is sure to fade eventually, and I think something revolutionary will happen to the way of communication, or else to the infrastructure of selling artworks.
The reality of communication for those of us, the creative who are still active over the turn of the century, is therefore shifting with acceleration without rest. In that sense, I thought the fact that the Wrong Gallery was made into merchandise was very suggestive and inspiring. After this e-mail conversation is done, I will immediately go to an Internet shop to hunt out and purchase the Wrong Gallery, without any input from a dealer.
Bye, Maurizio
t