When he relocated to Milan in the late 1980s, Maurizio Cattelan became fascinated with the monthly art magazine, Flash Art.

In 1990, he gathered copies of the publication, faced them on to an aluminium skeleton, and stacked them into a house of cards-style pyramid. The photo he took of his creation, entitled ‘Strategie’ was seemingly featured here on the cover of the magazine’s 155th edition in 1990.

However, the cover is a spurious one, a deliberate fake; a fake so perfect that it immediately started to circulate (Cattelan was to only officially feature on Flash Art’s front cover for the first time four years later in 1994).

Cattelan apparently commisioned the ‘fake’ Flash Art cover from the magazine’s own graphic designer, hence its short-term cloak of legitimacy.

Cattelan then takes the ‘art joke’ one step further and produces a special limited edition of the Flash Art issue, as presented here.

Limited to 90 copies, numbered and signed in pencil by Cattelan on the inside front cover.