Maurizio Cattelan on Failure, Catholicism and Rejecting Authority

With his first major solo exhibition in Germany at the “church” of Mies van der Rohe, the artist combines old and new works to destabilise meaning

NIGHT, Maurizio Cattelan’s first major solo exhibition in Germany, opens today at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie as part of Berlin Art Week, following his receipt of the 2026 Preis der Nationalgalerie. Born in Padua in 1960, Cattelan has become one of contemporary art’s most recognisable and disruptive figures, known for sculptures and conceptual interventions that challenge authority, mortality, institutions and systems of value (think of Comedian [2019], a conceptual  work that consists of a fresh banana duct-taped to a wall). Conceived specifically for Mies van der Rohe’s 1968 modernist glass hall, the exhibition brings together earlier works – including Novecento (1997), a suspended taxidermied horse that turns a traditional symbol of power into one of exhaustion and paralysis and Him (2001), a kneeling figure of Adolf Hitler that destabilises familiar images of evil and authority – alongside new commissions such as Purgatory (2026), a scaled-down Brandenburg Gate; Dust (2026), a fire extinguisher containing the cremated remains of a friend; and People (2026), thousands of taxidermied pigeons installed overhead, while Never (2003), an animatronic boy drummer inspired by Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum and its child protagonist witnessing the rise of Nazism, sits atop the museum like a watchman and warning.

Moving through history, authority, power, memory, identity and belief, the exhibition resists definitive answers. More than darkness, here the night represents uncertainty – a time when familiar meanings become unstable and open to reinterpretation. In NIGHT, humour and tragedy operate side by side: what begins as a familiar image slips into ironic and, at times, sinister territory. Cattelan has spent decades shaking up the art world by exposing the absurdities of value and authority, while using those same provocations to unsettle how we navigate power, history and ourselves. NIGHT brings those tensions into focus, using Berlin’s history and the museum’s architecture to reanimate Cattelan’s recurring concerns with authority, religion, failure, self-portraiture and the art market. Here, Cattelan untangles these themes on the eve of his exhibition opening. 

Sayori Radda What does night mean to you?

Maurizio Cattelan Night is a moment when we rest, think and make peace with ourselves. Everything fades, becomes fuzzy and dreamlike. It contains the promise of another day that might be better. Things can feel weightless or very heavy. To me it is positive, but it can also suggest despair.

SR You’ve described the Neue Nationalgalerie as a contemporary church. What did Mies van der Rohe’s architecture allow you to do?

MC You either relate to the building or it destroys you. The church came to mind because the building is divided into three parts: a principal nave and two lateral naves. Importantly, it remains a museum, not a church.

SR What does Berlin bring to the exhibition, and why recreate the Brandenburg Gate as a wooden miniature in Purgatory (2026)?

MC The environment is crucial to my work. The same work changes in a different context. With [kneeling Hitler in] Him (2001), there is a very strong connection to Berlin’s history and to scars that have never been fully repaired.

The Brandenburg Gate was the most symbolic and perfect entrance. Its meaning changed with history. It began as an arch symbolising peace. The horses were taken to France by Napoleon and, when they returned, were renamed Victory. The gate then came to represent imperialism, union, division and Nazism. Adapting it made the exhibition specific to this city.

It is uncanny how much the show became about today, considering many of the works were made 25 years ago.

SR Themes of power and authority recur throughout the show. Which works engage most directly with them?

MC Starting with school, I have always been allergic to authority in all its forms. Representing power or systems in ways that subvert or reconfigure them has always come naturally. Berlin? Fantastic. It is like taking the Pope in La Nona Ora (1999) [a life-sized sculpture of Pope John Paul II felled by a meteorite] to Rome. The place becomes the ultimate way to test the work.

Him was also shown inside the former Warsaw Ghetto. We presented it from far away through a hole, so you could only see his back. In that context the image was already strong enough. Sometimes images have a power you cannot control. You can only try to limit it.

SR Themes of religion, sacrifice and ritual recur in Night, too. Where does that visual vocabulary come from?

MC I grew up in a very traditional and conservative family, and religion was very present for at least the first 12 years of my life. If you are raised Catholic, you may not remain Catholic, but you carry the syndrome of having been Catholic.

Many titles in Night refer to a kind of Catholic grammar: Purgatory (2026), Pentecost (2002), Never (2003), Dawn (2007). When I work, I never think, “Who am I and why am I using this language?” But looking back, sacrifice, power, defeat and failure are very present in my language.

SR Your work often questions how value is created in the art world. Do you still want to disrupt those structures from inside?

MC I wish I had such power. Art itself is a convention among parties. It does not exist as value unless two parties decide that whatever is within a frame, a museum or a canvas can be called art. Then the rules of commodities can be applied.

So if, once in a while, we comment on that contract or exchange, it can be interesting. Comedian (2019) [a fresh banana duct-taped to a wall] is one of those works.

SR If someone said your work was designed to shock for shock’s sake, what would you say? Is there also a kind of timelessness to it, in that works can return in very different contexts?

MC If my works shocked for shock’s sake, the works in this exhibition wouldn’t exist anymore. They would have been a headline and then forgotten.

As for timelessness, I’m surprised, myself, but yes. I’ve been labelled the master of the one-liner. If that were really the case, we wouldn’t be here today.

SR Self-portraiture moves between literal works such as We (2010) [two identical figures of Cattelan lying side by side on a bed] and indirect pieces such as Novecento  (1997) [a suspended taxidermied horse conceived as a self-portrait] and Never (2003) [an animatronic boy drummer that forms part of Cattelan’s broader constellation of self-portraits]. What does that contrast allow you to explore?

MC Self-portraits started because I had the easiest access to myself. Often they explore the awkwardness of belonging.

We is about division. Sometimes you feel like you are two or three people – good and evil, or whatever double we have inside ourselves.

La Rivoluzione Siamo Noi (2000) [a cartoonish miniature effigy of the artist] came out of a show in Zurich. The space had 12 or 14 rooms and I didn’t know how to fill it, so I asked them to remove all the walls. In the end there was just a rack with a small version of myself dressed as Joseph Beuys, as if to say: this is all I was able to do.

You make something for one reason, then it becomes something else. It starts to ask: do you feel like an artist? How do you compare yourself to art history?

SR Once a work becomes famous, expensive or absorbed by the market, can it still be subversive?

MC The price tag an auction house gave Him didn’t change its power or meaning. Sometimes price can do the opposite. In the case of Comedian, it completes the work. The higher the price, the more absolute the work becomes. Price is part of that contract among parties.

SR Why has failure remained so productive for you?

MC Failure is not a trademark. It is probably something that, as a Catholic, was administered to me daily as a kid, and the remains of that education are still around. Maybe this is my way of expelling it and passing it on.

The suspended taxidermied horse in Novecento (1997) fails motion and power. The taxidermied pigeons in People (2026) fail too. They are present and ominous, but fail to say something. It is a power that isn’t exercised, but is very present – and it can be dangerous.

SR Your images often begin as something recognisable, then become uncertain. How important is that shift?

MC I love images. Being recognisable and immediately understandable lets you transfer something more subtle, quickly.

Take Him and the change of scale. You create short circuits in well-known images to let people enter, then shut the door. At that point it is too late to escape the confrontation. They are a kind of bait, a kind of treat.

SR Does humour help you approach subjects such as death, fascism, authority and religion?

MC Absolutely. Humour, like familiar images, is a way to make people comfortable. It is a tool, not an ingredient. Sometimes irony can hide deeper feelings that we otherwise wouldn’t be attracted to.

SR What do you hope people leave Night with?

MC I hope they go home with the sense that life doesn’t repeat itself, but it has a good memory.

NIGHT is on at The Neue Nationalgalerie until 7 March 2027