"Maurizio Cattelan: All" a retrospective of the artist at the Guggenheim, encompasses 128 works that hang from the famous rotunda.

The Olympic poster collection, which has been commissioned from Britain's finest, is now on show at the Tate Britain gallery.

When the Great Depression hit America in 1930’s, sweeping, gorgeous MGM films reigned at the box office. With current rising unemployment rates, Occupy Wall Street movement in full swing, and uncertain presidential race, Will Cotton’s escapist, and lush work is arguably needed now more that ever. The artist just released his anticipated book from Rizzoli called Will Cotton: Paintings & Works on Paper and it’s filled with two of most optimistic things in life: gorgeous pin-ups and probably the most mouth-watering depictions of sweets in art history. His goddesses (buddy and collector Katy Perry among them) are given as much love in the book as his ice-cream landscapes and candy cane trees. Your work is sort of a thrilling combination of both Reubens and Willy Wonka. When did you recognize what made you happy in the studio? When I look at images from art history, I tend to believe what I'm seeing, (even if it's a Tiepolo painting of people sitting around in the clouds). I think this is a function of great story telling. The first time I ever felt like I was really in control of the fictional narrative within my painting was when I started baking in my studio. I found that I could literally make an environment from scratch that contained all the symbolic elements I wanted to see in the finished painting. Do you really think that heaven is filled with cotton candy and soft-serve? I think everyone's heaven is of their own making, so yes! Absolutely, mine's full of those things. How do you get your sugar fix? I've been interested in chocolate lately, which is relatively new for me. I actually do like sweets, but I have a feeling that I'd still use them in my work even if I didn't. What’s the single greatest dessert experience that you remember? I've noticed that there are a lot of people in the art world who like to bake sweets, so last year I hosted a dessert bake-off in my studio. I invited fifteen friends to make their best dessert and bring it over for judging. Everyone went to such lengths to make something delicious and beautiful. As I was awarding the prize, I got to taste all of them! If you’d live in one of your sweet architectural wonders, what would it look like? There's a gingerbread chalet on page 90 of the book that I painted with that thought in mind. If I ever build a house it'll look something like that. You work with so many private clients as well. How do your collaborations normally work? They're only collaborative in the sense that the model's character tends to come through in the portrait. Beyond that they have to be willing to find themselves in whatever situation I think would be most exciting. Recently this has meant posing in some elaborate crowns made of everything from cream puffs to ribbon candy. Katy Perry was an exception for you in terms of being a celebrity subject. How different was she to paint as opposed to your other goddesses? Any time I make a painting I'm thinking of a whole array of symbolic points of reference. In the cotton candy cloud paintings these are things like Cabanel's Birth of Venus, and American Pin-up painting. But with a well-known model there is a whole other set of associations to be aware of. In Katy's case, what she brought to the picture happened to be exactly what I wanted to paint about. California Gurls garnered a crazy amount of views on YouTube. How does that feel for your art to have so much exposure? To be honest, I suspect that most of those viewers have no idea what they're seeing in the video is all based on my work. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled that my conversation with pop iconography is now more of a two way street. All images courtesy of Will Cotton [gallery order="DESC" columns="4" orderby="ID"]