Over the past few years, I’ve been very busy with installations of Cathenge, my 3D printed, Space Cat Temple that has appeared at Burning Man and been an SF Arts Commission public installation. For many years, Art Basel has snuck up on the calendar and happened without me attending and I’ve felt left out. Finally, in 2023, the stars aligned – I was ready with the newly designed “Kittolith” to go to Art Basel! The Kittolith is a smaller version (6’ tall) of the iconic Catolith (think Monolith of 2001 in the shape of a cat!) Cat Statue of Cathenge. The Kittolith can be disassembled into parts and fit into a couple of suitcases and taken on an airplane. And so I did just that! I packed the Kittolith up and reassembled it in my hotel room in Miami Beach and brought the Kittolith around to Miami ArtWeek (colloquially known as “Art Basel” for it’s eponymous lead art fair)!
I was so busy preparing the Kittolith, a 3D printed interactive sound-light sculpture, that I did not have time to plan in any detail for a tour of Miami ArtWeek’s many art fairs, venues, and events. One thing that caught my attention immediately though, and completely captured my imagination, was “The Maze” on Miami Beach. It sounded great to me, and like the perfect place to display the Kittolith. This site-specific installation was a large maze designed using AI and built right on the beach in front of Hotel Faena by Chilean artist, Sebastian Errazuriz. I had never heard of Errazuriz nor of Hotel Faena, but I knew intuitively that I wanted to bring my Kittolith to the center of The Maze. That became my central goal and my only tangible objective for my adventure of bringing the Kittolith to Art Basel.
In art terminology, an “intervention” is where one artist presents a work or a performance in another artist’s creation and context. Surprise performance art pieces at art openings are examples of “intervention”. Advanced by the Dadaists and the Situationists, intervention is more of a conceptual tactic than a specific artistic technique. Famously, in 2019, artist David Datuna “intervened” on artist Maurizio Cattelan’s, “Comedian”, (the notorious $120k-banana-duct-taped-to-the-wall), and peeled and ate that banana – perfect! Many interventions, like the aforementioned, have the quality of a prank (or – as the case may be – a prank upon a prank). However, bringing the Kittolith to the center of the maze was not a prank – it was a quest – a quest for an aesthetic truth.
The Kittolith symbolizes the Power of Holofelinity (Universal Cat Consciousness – an intrinsic concept of the Cathenge Mythos). Holofelinity is the divine feline power of mind over matter. The ancient Lyran Space Cats built their Love Planet of Lemewria using their minds to profoundly manipulate matter into the forms of their imagination. The Kittolith at the center of the maze is like the mind at the center of matter radiating the forms of desire into labyrinthine manifestations of reality. Bringing the Kittolith to the heart of the maze was as much a ritual drama of mythic symbols transcending time as it was a specific artistic intervention in the thick of Art Basel 2023.
It’s said that when things are meant to happen, that the right people will appear at the right time to make it happen. My friends, Dale Posner and Julia Sinelnikova, were the right people at the right time to encourage me and support me in this adventure. Both Dale and Julia are Art Basel veterans. Dale was showing me around one night when we ran into Julia on Collins Ave. in South Beach. Julia “Oracle” Sinelnikova is a sculptor from NYC, who was one of the original inspirations to Cathenge in 2018. Julia agreed to help me bring the Kittolith to the heart of The Maze on Sunday evening. I had brought the Kittolith into the lobby of Hotel Faena the preceding Saturday evening where the cat statue was enthusiastically welcomed by everyone around. Hotel Faena staff and security had no objection to the Kittolith’s presence, and the following Sunday evening Julia, myself, and the Kittolith were again welcomed at Hotel Faena and allowed to bring the statue into the maze just before closing time on its final night.
Once we were inside The Maze, people were thrilled. I don’t think anyone visiting The Maze had any idea that the Kittolith was not a part of the official plan. People completely assumed the cat statue belonged there and they were eager to take their pictures with the Kittolith. The cat fit in The Maze perfectly. At one point the she ran out of batteries, but Julia happened to have a big powerbrick all charged up and we turned the cat right back on. You can see how beautiful the Kittolith was in the center of Sebastian Errazuriz’s glorious “Maze” on the beach before Hotel Faena. It was a great moment – one of those moments of fulfillment when you know that you’ve succeeded.
Like I said, I had never heard of Hotel Faena before going to Art Basel last year. I didn’t realize The Maze had anything to do with a hotel. Hotel Faena was an extremely pleasant surprise to me. I loved the lobby with its lavish murals full of alchemical heraldry, Damien Hirst’s golden mammoth, and the overall ambience that was so opulent and glamorous and yet so totally welcoming and friendly. My friend Dale let me know that Hotel Faena awards a “Faena Prize” for artworks to be presented on the beach, and after I had brought the Kittolith to the heart of The Maze I was sure that I should apply for the Faena Prize in hopes of bringing the entire Cathenge Cat Temple to Miami Beach in the future.
I know that even if The Maze had existed totally independent of a sponsoring entity such as Hotel Faena, I would have brought the Kittolith to The Maze and been satisfied with that in and of itself, but ultimately it was more consequential than I had even expected because the photos taken of the Kittolith at Sebastian Errazuriz’s Maze in front of the hotel are an effective proof of concept for Cathenge on Miami Beach. These photos, which have illustrated this story, will be part of the proposal to be submitted for the Hotel Faena Art Prize.
This adventure of bringing the Kittolith to The Maze at Art Basel is an object lesson in Holofelinity which shows the power of imagination and desire to manifest reality. The Maze and Cathenge share in common technologically advanced methods of creation (The Maze was AI generated and Cathenge was 3D printed). They are interactive and immersive art environments. As Art Basel expands in popularity it attracts a much wider demographic than just art collectors, and many visitors seek pure aesthetic experience rather than collecting art. Interactive artworks that immerse the audience completely will gain in importance, and Faena Art is at the curatorial forefront of this trend. As new forms of technology continue to expand artistic possibilities, the Cat in the Maze is a harbinger of greater things to come!
