Gallery 01:17
US
Adolf Hitler’s head is placed on the body of a young boy. His hands are folded in prayer, his gaze aimed upward. Kneeling, humbled in a submissive gesture – is he praying for strength, guidance, or perhaps forgiveness? Maurizo Cattelan’s HIM, blends the feared and loathed with the pathetic and vulnerable. With his back turned, and wearing civilian clothes, we meet the child behind the fear and hate. This work raises questions. Is there a limit to what we can forgive? Is our mercy proportional to the sins committed? How do we find power in our beliefs, and how do we justify our actions?
On the wall hangs a picture made by the American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. The pointing hand is an image borrowed from U.S. Army recruitment posters during the First and Second World Wars, where Uncle Sam sternly points at the viewer with the call to enlist. It is an iconic symbol of American nationalism and militarism. Lichtenstein’s simplification of the gesture makes it more universal but equally forceful.
Cattelan’s art often delivers poignant, controversial motifs, but the artist insists that he never intentionally provokes with his art. Instead, he simply holds up a mirror to reality as it appears. Perhaps we should be more attentive to what goes on around us every day and react to the real atrocities committed in society. Cattelan made HIM in 2001 while he was in Stockholm on an international artist residency organised by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee (IASPIS). The work was first shown at Färgfabriken in Stockholm the same year.
