Maurizio Cattelan: All App

For Maurizio Cattlan: All (November 2011-January 2012), the Guggenheim Museum produced its first multiplatform mobile app. The exhibition's dramatic, site-specific installation featured 128 works of art by the Italian-born artist Maurizio Cattelan, suspended from the ceiling of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed rotunda. For for the first time in museum history, no art was presented on the walls, which called for a means to digitally reproduce wall text and provide context for visitors on the exhibition's decidedly conceptual and often provocative works of art. To address this, a mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and Android was created for the exhibition, allowing visitors to engage with individual works on their own devices, by zooming in on a piece within the physical 3D installation, presented in the palm of their hands. With the app, visitors could select and learn more about a work in the context of the artist's career with interpretive text, video, audio, and alternate views of a piece in previous installations/presentations, among other engaging features that allowed visitors to re-create their museum experience before or after a visit.

Available for iPhone, iPad, and Android, unique features also included the ability to watch more than 30 original videos about the exhibition developed exclusively for the app, from interviews with Maurizio's collaborators (fellow artists, curators, gallerists) to behind-the-scenes footage from the installation, such as a time-lapse video of the installation and interviews with engineers and fabrications staff who described the process behind suspending an artist's life work in the Guggenheim rotunda. Audio commentary by Maurizio Cattelan read by John Waters, host of the app, brought in reflections of the artist on his own works. Additional sections of the app cover the artist's past and future projects, including extremely detailed and rich-in-color e-book editions of his magazine Toilet Paper, the latest edition of which was created on the occassion of his retrospective at the Guggenheim. As an all encompassing mobile experience of the exhibition Maurizio Cattelan: All and Maurizio Cattelan's career as an artist, the mobile app proved a valued and interactive learning tool not only for visitors on site to enhance and share their experience while at the museum, but also for those who wished to experience the artist's first (and final) retrospective and could never make it to the Guggenheim.

Home ScreenInstallation ViewObject DetailVideo: Working with MaurizioToilet Paper Magazine