This post is about a thought that has been in my mind since I first saw the work of Maurizio Catellan at the Tate in London. I was in transit to Sweden. Without much to do during the day I decided to visit the Tate.

Disappointed to notice the main installation in the turbine hall was not yet ready I decided to stroll through the permanent art collection. I had done this many times before and wasn’t expecting to see anything new. Lost between the modernists and the contemporaries, as usual finding it difficult to engage with the art, I saw the Ave Maria of Maurizio Catellan.

Associating a fascist greeting to such a religious name was a brilliant combination and having three arms coming off a wall was so unpredictable that worked well to caught my attention. Also the fact that this art piece was surrounded by abstract works, made the message even more effective and clear, as I have noticed in my post about the Madonna Enthroned with Child and Saints by Giovanni Bellini.

One year later, I happened to be at the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art and amongst the various art pieces was Catellan’s dead horse hanging from the ceiling. I didn’t understand the symbolism of this work immediately, but seeing the animal in such an awkward location caught my attention once again.

I think that portraying perfect representations of nature in such unpredictable forms and locations helps to spark curiosity between the art piece and the observer. But what truly talked to me was the fact that although hands coming off walls and horses hanging from ceilings are abstract representations of the reality, despite their deep meaning, these art pieces were presented in format that allowed me to interact with them.

These days Maurizio Cattelan is one of my favourite artists. I like how he mixes art with humor as I personally think art, or the business of art, is a form of entertainment.