Maurizio Cattelan, artistic provocation (and shock): from the puppets hanged in Milan to the child with the 'gun' on Garibaldi's shoulders in Bergamo
Bergamo – If the goal was to get people talking, the goal has been achieved. Maurizio Cattelan always gets people talking. On the other hand, the work of the 64-year-old Paduan artist feeds on disruption, irony, shattered sacredness and subverted power. Just remember his most famous works: the Pope struck by a meteorite in The Ninth Hour , Hitler on his knees in the Him series, the puppet children hanged in Milan, up to the banana stuck to the wall with adhesive tape in Comedian . Now one of the most discussed and celebrated Italian artists on an international level is coming to Bergamo with the widespread exhibition Seasons . And his arrival in the Orobic capital has immediately made a splash.
One of his installations, a child wearing a red T-shirt and beige trousers , his right hand miming a gun, sitting astride the statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi, in the centre of the Rotonda dei Mille , in the heart of the city, has created alarm among the citizens.
In fact, many people, after looking up, thought that the person at the top of the statue was a real boy who somehow managed to climb to the top and called the local police station. The tone of the calls was identical: “There is a child on the statue of Garibaldi at the Rotonda dei Mille. Come as soon as possible, it could fall at any moment”.
The switchboard was busy for several hours reassuring residents and explaining what was going on. Calm returned when the 'incriminating' photo and the explanation appeared on social media. The child on top of the Garibaldi statue was an installation, One , which remained secret until the last minute at Cattelan's request, part of the Seasons exhibition, which opens on Friday 6 June and will remain visible until 26 October.
The Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo, Sergio Gandi , emphasized that Cattelan's work "wants to explain what it means to be the heirs of the values on which our Nation and our cities were built" . But several citizens did not spare criticism of the artist. "What should we expect from someone who hung a banana on the wall?", one of the citizens of Bergamo who called the local police command said annoyed.
A married couple who fell into Cattelan's 'trap' shared the same opinion. "At first we really believed it was a real child and we were scared. Then the local police explained to us that everything was fine. However, a little respect for Garibaldi wouldn't have hurt. Congratulations to whoever authorized such an installation. We will definitely not visit the exhibition".
The Municipality downplays the incident and prefers to emphasize the artistic importance of the event. It seems that the provocation was expected and that it was known that the exhibition would be accompanied by a sensational gesture. The One installation, as mentioned, is one of the stages of the Seasons exhibition , planned in several locations. At Gamec, which promoted the project, the works Empire and No are hosted. In the former oratory of San Lupo is the sculpture Bones; at Palazzo della Ragione, in Città Alta, November is exhibited.
One is just the latest of Cattelan's provocative works. It was May 5, 2004 when in Piazza XXIV Maggio, in Milan, the puppets of three children hanged from the oak tree were presented: jeans and T-shirt, bare feet and wide open eyes. The work, donated by the Trussardi Foundation, created a scandal. Also in Milan, on September 24, 2010, the sculpture LOVE (Freedom, Hate, Revenge, Eternity) was inaugurated, commonly known as “The Finger”: a slap in the face to financial power.
At the 2023 Cremona Art Week, Cattelan hung a crocodile in the Baptistery . Name: Ego. In Christian iconography, the crocodile is a controversial figure. Even in medieval bestiaries, it represents the figure of the hypocrite, the miser, and the libertine.
Il Giorno
