Those who are impressed by spectacle and/or taxidermy will be thoroughly satisfied with All, the superficial yet mind-boggling retrospective of Italian provocateur Maurizio Cattelan. Over 20 years worth of the artist’s work—128 sculptures, photographs, neon signs, billboards, and paintings—dangle from a steel frame at the top of the museum’s rotunda, filling the void at the center of the building and leaving the walls entirely blank. This hanging most resembles a public execution, made all the more poignant (for those who care) by Cattelan’s announcement that the show will be his final work of art, even though he’s only 51 years of age.

Defying a chronological or even thoughtful thematic arrangement, the installation launches the works on a collision course in space. Some meanings can be discerned, but then, it’s almost by accident. Frank and Jamie (2002), two policemen hanging upside down, can be viewed behind Him (2000), a child-size rendition of Adolf Hitler, as if the cops were incapable of arresting the villain who, in turn, prays for forgiveness. Frau C. (2007), a lifelike woman in the posture of a crucifix, presides over Charlie Don’t Surf (1997), a young boy with hands impaled on a school desk by yellow pencils. The sense of death is palpable, even beyond such pieces as JFK in his coffin, in Now (2004), or the pope felled by a meteor, in La Nona Ora (1999), probably Cattelan’s most famous work.

With the further inclusion of four horses, five donkeys, numerous dogs, one ostrich, an elephant, and a full-scale dinosaur skeleton, one wonders what keeps everything from crashing to the ground. The political content of Cattelan’s work appears to have been drained, especially with L.O.V.E. (2010), a model of a hand featuring an erect middle finger with no indication that the original sculpture is installed outside the Milan Stock Exchange. Missing also are the artist’s pranks, such as curating the “Wrong Gallery,” a miniature exhibition space first installed in a window in a Chelsea doorway. For visitors eager to learn more about the artist, the museum directs them not to wall labels, but to an iPad app, which provides everything but the price tags.