Maurizio Cattelan is among the best-known Italian artists to have emerged internationally in the 1990s. His work has featured at the Venice Biennale in 1993, 1997 and 1999 and in major venues worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1998); and the Tate Gallery, London (1999). Cattelan\'s work mocks art history (his giant, Disneyland-style "Pablo Picasso" welcomed visitors at New York\'s MoMA, 1998), monumentality (his granite plaque commemorating all the England football team losses, London, 1999), and nationalism (his rug based on the Bel Paese cheese wrapper map of Italy was placed to be trampled by visitors at a major show of new Italian art, 1994). International curator Francesco Bonami sets the work in the context of post-war Italian political and social history; Cattelan\'s "slippery" personality shines through in his conversation with Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector; curator Barbara Vanderlinden focuses on the artist\'s monumental untitled work created for Manifesta 2 (Luxemburg, 1998). Cattelan\'s themes of angst and escapism are reflected in excerpts from Philip Roth\'s Portnoy\'s Complaint and suicide notes selected on the artist\'s behalf by an anonymous editor.