Massimiliano Gioni reveals that for nearly a decade, from 1997 to 2006, he acted as Maurizio Cattelan's ghostwriter and public impersonator, writing all of Cattelan's texts, press releases, and interviews, and even giving lectures and television appearances in his place. Gioni describes how he fabricated lies and half-truths, speaking as Cattelan at universities like Yale and NYU, on Vatican Radio, and during the media storm over Cattelan's sculpture of hanged children in Milan, all for a monthly fee of $500.
This essay, published in the collection "Maurizio Cattelan: Beware of Yourself" (Marsilio Arte, 2025), matters because it exposes the constructed nature of artistic identity and the role of narrative in the contemporary art world. Gioni's account challenges traditional notions of critical distance and authenticity, showing how an artist's public persona can be a deliberate fabrication, and raises questions about truth, authorship, and the power of interpretation in an era of post-truth communication.