Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan

(Padova, 1960)

Cattelan’s works, acting as disturbing elements, disrupt the social conventions, working on the fine line between reality and fiction. The artist’s procedure is based on the idea of “borrowing,” in the sense of borrowing from reality images and situations related to various contexts, which Cattelan reworks to provoke reflections on the world in which we live. Each of his works is always open to different interpretations, sometimes even of a contradictory nature: instead of offering certainty, his works extend doubt, as a condition meant to accompany contemporary consciousness.

Novecento (Nineteen hundred), 1997, is a taxidermized horse, hanging by means of a sling from the center of the ceiling of an elegant historical room in the Castle, the Hall of Stuccoes. The technique of taxidermy, used mainly by natural science museums, involves preparing animal skins to make preservation possible, then stuffing them to give the appearance and attitude of living animals.

In the work, which simulates the appearance of a real horse, the animal’s neck is bent toward the ground and the legs, stretched out in the process, are stretched toward the ground. A disturbing version of a “still life,” the work conveys a sense of tension, insecurity and precariousness.

The Century that has just passed, the Twentieth Century, is indeed an era marked by wars, nuclear bombs, and great broken ideals. By the artist’s own admission, insecurity is a defining aspect of his practice, and the sense of failure is a recurring theme in his works. Cattelan’s work Novecento overturns the tradition of equestrian sculpture that was characterized by the representation of the hero on horseback, with its celebratory purpose, which for centuries has referred to power.