Maurizio Cattelan

RS&A Ltd., London
Private Collection, New York
Sotheby's, New York, November 12, 2008, lot 458
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

London, The Gilbert Collection, The Art of Chess, June - November 2003, p. 47, illustrated in color (another example exhibited)
New York, Luhring Augustine Gallery, The Art of Chess, October - December 2005 (another example exhibited)

This work appears in very good condition overall. There are faint and unobtrusive scratches to the wood board. There is a fine hairline crease located to the right hand of Joan of Arc (the figure holding a flag). The underside of the ball, tethered to Pinnochio shows evidence of wear at the resting point. Otherwise, the pawns are sound and there are no apparent condition problems with this work. List of Characters On the 'Evil' side (Black/Silver band on base): King: Hitler Queen: Cruella de Ville Bishop: Cronos (the God of Time) Bishop: Bergman's figure of 'Death' Knight: Sigmund Freud with suitcase Knight: Salome with head of John the Baptist Rook: Dracula Rook: The Tree of Knowledge Pawn: Stalin Pawn: Nero Pawn: General Custer Pawn: Mata Hari Pawn: Pol Pot Pawn: Donatella Versace Pawn: Rasputin Pawn: Al Capone On the 'Good' side (White/Gold band on base): King: Martin Luther King Queen: Mary Magdalene Bishop: Gandhi Bishop: Che Guevara Knight: Ciccolina Knight: Joan of Arc Rook: Francis of Assisi Rook: Freud with a Pipe Pawn: An American Firefighter Pawn: Superman Pawn: Sitting Bull Pawn: Wolf standing on its hind legs Pawn: Mother Theresa Pawn: Sofia Lauren Pawn: Dalai Lama Pawn: Pinocchio
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Maurizio Cattelan's Good Versus Evil brilliantly enlists an ingenious pantheon of thirty two heroes and villains drawn from popular culture and history, which careers from the frivolous to the sober and from the sublime to the ridiculous. Hitler is pitched against Martin Luther King; Dracula against St Francis of Assisi; and Al Capone against Gandhi, while the apparently schizophrenic Sigmund Freud appears on both sides, thereby parodying his psycho-analytic interrogations of the stability of identity. With its figures fabricated in porcelain by the master ceramicists Bertozzi and Casoni, Cattelan's chess sculpture comprises a hilarious take on the traditional chess set and calls to mind his hero Marcel Duchamp's famous 1952 quip: "While all artists are not chess players, all chess players are indeed artists" (cited in The Daily Telegraph, 9^th August 2008). It fits perfectly into the artist's career-long analysis of power hierarchies and also epitomizes his mischievous brand of post-modernism.

Commissioned by RS&A Ltd, a London art company focused on promoting collaborative creative projects, Good Versus Evil was included in the exhibition The Art of Chess at the Gilbert Collection, London in 2003 alongside works relating to the game of chess by Kusama, Hirst, the Chapmans, Duchamp, Calder, and others. Each chess board in the show illustrated a move in the legendary and probably fictitious final chess match between Napoleon Bonaparte and General Bertrand on St Helena around 1820, with Good Versus Evil demonstrating Napoleon's final match-wining move. The French Emperor's aptitude for the game is, however, open to considerable doubt and nothing could embody his supposed check-mate coup more irreverently than Cattelan's extremely humorous set of satirical chess characters.