Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, the glass-and-steel temple of modernism designed by Mies van der Rohe, has been transformed into a stage for one of contemporary art's most unsettling voices. Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has opened Night, his first major solo exhibition in Germany, a sprawling meditation on power, violence, faith, and the fragility of certainty.
The show brings together iconic works from the past two decades alongside newer pieces, arranged to create a dialogue between the museum's vast, austere hall and Cattelan's irreverent, often disturbing imagery. Visitors move through a landscape of taxidermied animals, miniature monuments, and darkly comic sculptures that refuse easy interpretation.
A kneeling Hitler and the ambiguity of repentance
At the center of the exhibition is Him (2001), a life-size wax figure of Adolf Hitler kneeling on the floor, seen from behind as a small, almost childlike figure. As viewers circle the sculpture, the familiar face emerges, forcing a confrontation with the banality of evil and the unresolved question of guilt.
Co-curator Lisa Botti notes that the work remains painfully relevant. “The sculpture is actually from 2001, so it's not a recent one, but unfortunately it stays relevant in our times,” she said. Cattelan deliberately leaves the figure's meaning open. “You don't really know if he's praying for forgiveness or not. It stays in between. So it has this power that it shakes you, but it's not certainty.”
The piece, which sold for €15 million at auction in 2016, is a stark reminder of how art can hold a mirror to history without offering easy answers.
Berlin landmarks and the weight of the 20th century
The exhibition also plays with the city's own symbols. In Purgatory, Cattelan presents a scaled-down version of the Brandenburg Gate, reduced to a model that feels both familiar and strange. Above visitors, hundreds of taxidermied pigeons perch on a suspended ceiling in People, their silent presence a commentary on mass society and urban life.
Another striking work, Novecento, features an exhausted horse hanging from the ceiling, its legs dangling limply. For Botti, the animal embodies the arc of the 20th century: “Horses are always the symbol for nobility, for military, for winning. But here it's the opposite. It's weak. It's exhausted.” The sculpture evokes both the grandeur and the collapse of empires, a theme that resonates across Europe's recent history.
Outside, on the museum's roof, a mechanical boy beats a drum in Never, a reference to Günter Grass's novel The Tin Drum. The image can be read as a warning or a call to wake up, echoing the novel's themes of resistance and complicity.
From golden toilets to a million-dollar banana
Cattelan has built his reputation on works that challenge conventional notions of art and value. His Comedian—a banana duct-taped to a wall—sold for €5.2 million at auction in New York in 2024, while his 18-carat gold toilet, America, was stolen from Blenheim Palace in England in 2019. The toilet was conceived as a satire of excessive wealth, and had previously been displayed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
But Night takes a darker, more contemplative turn. The title itself suggests darkness and a time for reflection, while also hinting at the promise of a new morning. In an era of political upheaval and cultural anxiety, Cattelan's work invites viewers to sit with discomfort rather than look away.
The exhibition is a reminder that art can still provoke, unsettle, and question the foundations of our societies. As Botti put it, the works “shake you, but they don't give you certainty.” In that space of uncertainty, perhaps, lies the possibility of genuine thought.
Night runs at the Neue Nationalgalerie until spring 2026. For those interested in how European cities are grappling with cultural and political shifts, the show offers a timely, if uncomfortable, lens.
