Toiletpaper, Issue 17

Toiletpaper is an artists’ magazine created and produced by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, born out of a passion or obsession they both cultivate: images. The magazine contains no text; each picture springs from an idea, often simple, and through a complex orchestration of people it becomes the materialization of the artists’ mental outbursts. Since the first issue, in June 2010, Toiletpaper has created a world that displays ambiguous narratives and a troubling imagination. It combines the vernacular of commercial photography with twisted narrative tableaux and surrealistic imagery. The result is a publication that is itself a work of art, which, through its accessible form as a magazine, and through its wide distribution, challenges the limits of the contemporary art economy.

In this issue:

The 17th issue of Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari’s surrealist and provocative magazine Toilet Paper presents 22 new surreal scenes. After his final rétrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, in early 2012, Maurizio Cattelan now focuses on his new magazine/artist’s book project Toilet Paper together with photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari (Le Dictateur). In the wake of his previous cult magazines (Permanent Food, Charley), Maurizio Cattelan subverts the codes of established media iconography, digging into fashion, ads, movies & commercial photography to investigate our contemporary obsession with images, our overdose of visual consumption.

Edited by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari (concept and pictures).