Maurizio Cattelan's Berlin Show 'NIGHT' Reconsiders His Legacy Beyond the Banana

Key facts

• Maurizio Cattelan's first major institutional solo exhibition in Germany, 'NIGHT', opens at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin on September 10.
• The exhibition is curated by Lisa Botti with director Klaus Biesenbach and coincides with Cattelan winning the Preis der Nationalgalerie.
• Works on view include 'Him' (2001), a wax sculpture of Adolf Hitler; 'Novecento' (1997), a taxidermied horse; and 'Bones' (2025), a marble eagle.
• A new site-specific work based on a local monument will be installed at the exhibition's entrance.
• Cattelan was born in Padua in 1960 and skipped art school, learning the art world on his own.
• His 2019 work 'Comedian' (a banana duct-taped to a wall) sold for over $6 million at auction to crypto billionaire Justin Sun.
• The exhibition transforms the Mies van der Rohe-designed upper hall into a space evoking a church or secular sanctuary.
• Cattelan has stated his interest in 'figures of authority and what happens when their certainty begins to crack.'
• The show comes after a controversy at the Neue Nationalgalerie during Nan Goldin's retrospective in late 2024.
• Cattelan's 2011 retrospective 'All' at the Guggenheim featured 130 works hung by rope in the rotunda.