Hitler, horses and pigeons: Maurizio Cattelan explores power and darkness in Berlin exhibition

Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has brought his provocative and often unsettling work to Berlin for his first major solo exhibition in Germany exploring power, violence, death, faith and uncertainty. Night, at the Neue Nationalgalerie, brings together several of Maurizio Cattelan’s best-known works alongside pieces created more recently, transforming Germany's vast modernist Neue Nationalgalerie museum into a world of disturbing images and unexpected juxtapositions. Hitler on his knees Among the most striking works is Him, a 2001 sculpture depicting Adolf Hitler kneeling on the floor as if in prayer. From one angle, the figure appears to be a small, innocent-looking child. As visitors move around it, however, the face of Hitler is revealed. Him was created more than two decades ago, and sold for €15 million at auction in 2016. Night co-curator Lisa Botti says the work still has a lot to say about today's society: “The sculpture is actually from 2001, so it's not a recent one, but unfortunately it stays relevant in our times.” Playful and provocative as ever, Cattelan deliberately leaves the meaning of the figure unresolved. “You don't really know if he's praying for forgiveness or not,” Botti added. “It stays in between. So it has this power that it shakes you, but it's not certainty.” Berlin landmarks take on new meanings The exhibition also plays with familiar symbols. In Purgatory, Cattelan presents a scaled-down version of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, while hundreds of stuffed pigeons appear to occupy the ceiling above visitors in People. Another work, Novecento, shows an exhausted horse suspended from the ceiling. For Botti, the animal represents both the power associated with the 20th Century and its eventual collapse. “Horses are always the symbol for nobility, for military, for winning,” she said. “But here it's the opposite. It's weak. It's exhausted.” Outside the museum, a mechanical boy beats a drum on the roof in Never, a work inspired by Günter Grass's novel "The Tin Drum_"_. The image can be interpreted as a warning or a call to wake up. From a golden toilet to a million-dollar banana Cattelan has built his reputation on works that challenge conventional ideas about art, value and taste. His best-known pieces include Comedian, a banana duct-taped to a wall, which sold for €5.2m at auction in New York in 2024. His gold toilet, America, meanwhile, was stolen in 2019 from Blenheim Palace in England. The work was presented as a satire of excessive wealth and had previously been displayed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. But Night takes a darker and more contemplative approach. Its title refers to darkness and a time for reflection, while also suggesting the promise of a new morning. The exhibition runs at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie until March 2027.