Maurizio Cattelan Opens Up About Sin, Silence, And Stealing: 'I'm Guilty Too'

What does an art-world gala look like when conversation is removed from the equation? At the Renaissance Society's 2026 RenBen, Maurizio Cattelan answered that question by turning the Chicago Athletic Club into a silent, two-floor labyrinth on Wednesday, April 8, in the lead-up to Expo Chicago.

Guests entered the 1893 Michigan Avenue hotel and were asked to spend two hours without speaking, communicating only through handwritten notes in provided notebooks. The building's ornate facade and layered lobby spaces gave the evening a theatrical frame, but the real structure came from the performances and installations scattered throughout the rooms. Jacob Ryan Renolds offered“Terrible Portraits” made in five minutes. Davide Balula staged slow-motion movement with performers dressed in black and white. Isabelle Frances McGuire placed an animatronic donkey and a sculpture of Napoleon Bonaparte in a suite. In another room, Justin“Nordic Thunder” Howard, the Air Guitar World Champion, silently played along to music in his headphones.

The final hour broke the silence with dinner, live music, and food by Jason Hammel of Lula Cafe, including a twelve-foot-long tiramisu. By the end of the night, the RenBen had raised about $600,000 for the University of Chicago arts venue.

The benefit also aligned with a new round of Cattelan editions through Avant Arte. On view was Therapy (2026), a print with 22-karat gold in the shape of a toilet seat. Avant Arte is also releasing a new edition of La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour, 1999), priced at $2,851 in an edition of 666. Cattelan said he had been back at work for about seven years after his self-proclaimed retirement.

The evening fit neatly within Cattelan's long record of turning institutional rituals into something stranger, funnier, and more unstable. At the Renaissance Society, that impulse became a fundraising format: part performance, part social experiment, and part reminder that silence can be its own kind of spectacle.

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