Out comes a strange object: a life-size orange hand from which all the fingers except the erect middle one have been broken off. Obscene, goofy and eye-catching, the one-fingered hand looks like a cross between a gag-store novelty and a sex toy. To anyone else, it might well be a joke. Cattelan passes the hand to me, and we continue strolling, talking about his plans.
This being New York, pedestrians and joggers studiously avoid glancing at us, two men contemplating a rude, inexplicable object. Imagine them back in place, and the gesture becomes a different kind of provocation: a vandalized Fascist salute. Whether spectators see a sly political allusion or simply an icon of good-natured irreverence, the one-fingered hand would be a grand, brazen, unforgettable gesture. But in the months before it was installed, during a brief stay in New York, Cattelan spoke about the project cautiously.
I can see the mayor unveiling the sculpture. It could be quite a. Only a few days earlier, the mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, had pushed a skeptical city council to approve the monument.
But he clearly — and characteristically — relished the idea of putting her in an awkward position. Gestures like these earned Cattelan his reputation as a jokester, a clown, a comedian, and while supporters sometimes bristle at these labels, it would be silly to disavow them entirely.
Cattelan is funny. Not simply funny, not predictably funny, not though the connection is often made sweetly, sentimentally, Roberto Benigni funny. Funny in a way that depends on discomfort, on testing, on seeing what happens if you flip off your hometown. At 50, Cattelan is a tall, lean, broad-shouldered man. His long face, dominated by a major nose, projects gravity and wariness. When he laughs, though, he sticks out his tongue like a class clown and lets his shoulders rise up toward his ears.
