Gallery 01:15

STRENGTH AND VULNERABILITY

There is something spectral about the wax figures and stuffed animals that often appear in Cattelan’s works. They are deceptively warm and lifelike, yet unmistakably cold and dead. Five horses with their rears towards us seem to have punched their heads through the wall. Why? Cattelan’s art offers no answers, just scenes to observe and contemplate. This installation bears the same title, Kaputt, as a novel by Curzio Malaparte. It tells of a flock of horses that escaped fire during the Second World War by throwing themselves into a lake. The lake froze over suddenly, and the horses were stuck with their heads above the surface and died. Here, the wall can represent the water’s surface and the floor a seabed.

Seeing Rosemarie Trockel’s stove sculpture can evoke tactile memories of hot hobs. In her works, she often transforms materials from a traditionally female-coded sphere into abstract art objects with masculine connotations. Niki de Saint Phalle fired her gun at plaster-covered containers of paint, in a powerful and violent gesture, resulting in paint “bleeding” from the bullet holes. She was also figuratively aiming her gun at the art establishment, the church, and male-dominated society.

Although this room is characterised by strength and power, the works here also have touches of vulnerability. Increased awareness of climate change prompted Eija-Liisa Ahtila to question anthropocentrism, which puts humanity at the centre of existence, and decided to make a portrait of a fir tree. The horizontal format robs the tree of some of its proud height, but also makes it possible for us to truly see. The wind sounds like breathing. The fir, like the horses and people, becomes an animate being.