Davide Rivalta's Monumental Animal Sculptures Transform Stockholm's Urban Landscape

Italian artist Davide Rivalta has installed thirteen monumental bronze sculptures throughout Stockholm, redefining urban space through animal figures that blend with the city's fabric. The project, titled 'Blowing Figures into Space,' features lions, rhinoceroses, and buffaloes placed directly on the ground without pedestals, allowing them to share space with pedestrians. These works appear at iconic locations including Mynttorget in Gamla Stan, Ladugårdsgärdet, and Hagaparken, creating a dispersed geography that connects historic centers with natural landscapes. The initiative is promoted by the Italian Institute of Culture 'C.M. Lerici' in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Sweden and the Lerici Foundation. Rivalta's animals function as critical devices that question human-nonhuman relationships through subtle perceptual shifts rather than explicit narratives. This outdoor installation represents a natural extension of his 2024 exhibition 'Animals that will be' at Stockholm's Italian Institute of Culture, where he revealed preparatory sketches and working materials. Born in Bologna in 1974, Rivalta creates figures that feel both familiar and displaced, realistic yet suspended in another dimension. The sculptures insinuate themselves into daily life without mediation, altering urban codes through silent symbolic migration.