Board and Box: Wenge and walnut, foam and suede interior

Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan (born 1960) is perhaps best known for his mischievous sense of humour, challenging the mores of the art world and public alike. In 1997 he filled the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with stuffed pigeons and in 1999 displayed La Nona Ora at the Kunsthalle in Basel, an installation comprising of a waxwork mannequin of Pope John Paul II being squashed by a meteorite (seen in London as part of the Apocalypse show at the Royal Academy). Maintaining the provocative power of laughter in his RS&A commission fabricated in porcelain by Bertozzi and Casoni, Cattelan has decided to populate his highly figurative chess set with good and bad figures that he both admires and despises. The King on the black side is Adolf Hitler, opposed on the white side by Martin Luther King. Other notable figures appear as Pawns, including Donatella Versace, Rasputin and General Custer (black) and Superman, Mother Teresa and Sitting Bull (white).