It was half past one in the morning last Sunday when the fearless Courtney Love took the stage in the Guggenheim’s basement theater to round out a night of lectures, performances and videos dedicated to the topic of death in art. The occasion was Marizio Cattelan, the Italian artist whose retrospective, “All,” closed that night, marking the end, the artist says, of his career. Somewhere in Love’s speech – part screed against the media and art worlds, part performance art – were clues to reading Cattelan’s retirement. They were difficult to find, between the Hollywood musings (she’s going to be acting again) and a different kind of critique of Google (when she searches for herself and the word “drunk” she discovers thousands of hits, even though she does not “do” alcohol). But they were there. Somewhere. It was late. Fortunately, or not, there is a video.
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