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Oracle of DelphiMaurizio Cattelan: Hanging Kids
May 2nd 2006 23:09
The Fondazione Nicola Trussardi has presented a new installation by Maurizio Cattelan conceived for one of the most significant sites in the city of Milan.
The controversial installation, which sees three fake children hanged from trees in the public square has divided the artisitic community as to the merits of the work.
The artist, Maurizio Cattelan, maintains that hanging three kids from their necks in an oak tree in Milan park is a good way of getting in touch with your inner child. "Childhood, this strange place where traumas happen and you dream incredible dreams, is a place I always return to," says Cattelan.
Possibly a disenchanted view on childhood, Maurizio Cattelan’s new installation is also a reflection on the role of the artist, seen as the ringmaster of a circus, in which cruelty and entertainment meet and overlap.
More than that, the work is a meditation on spectatorship itself. Called on to look at the work because of its status as 'art', the viewer simulataneously desires to turn away from such a horrific image. And the more one looks, the more voyeuristic potential the spectacle profers - the spectator forced to ask him/herself the shocking question 'Am I actually enjoying this?'
The viewing process is therefore ambivalent, a process that forces the spectator to question in a wider sense why he/she looks at images of violence/punishment, and the blurred line between such images and art itself.
The controversial installation, which sees three fake children hanged from trees in the public square has divided the artisitic community as to the merits of the work.
The artist, Maurizio Cattelan, maintains that hanging three kids from their necks in an oak tree in Milan park is a good way of getting in touch with your inner child. "Childhood, this strange place where traumas happen and you dream incredible dreams, is a place I always return to," says Cattelan.
The installantion in Milan's Piazza XXIV Maggio
Possibly a disenchanted view on childhood, Maurizio Cattelan’s new installation is also a reflection on the role of the artist, seen as the ringmaster of a circus, in which cruelty and entertainment meet and overlap.
More than that, the work is a meditation on spectatorship itself. Called on to look at the work because of its status as 'art', the viewer simulataneously desires to turn away from such a horrific image. And the more one looks, the more voyeuristic potential the spectacle profers - the spectator forced to ask him/herself the shocking question 'Am I actually enjoying this?'
The viewing process is therefore ambivalent, a process that forces the spectator to question in a wider sense why he/she looks at images of violence/punishment, and the blurred line between such images and art itself.
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Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by amy
I'd question whether its possible ever to recapture your inner child again looking at something that makes me feel like a protective adult. I think it alienates viewers from children.
It's also a bit sensationalist. Like "what's the worst thing I can think of?"
Might as well have frozen baby mice in blocks of ice then cut them up. Then again, I think that's already been done...
What do you know about Julian Beever? (i think that's his name) - weird pavement art that seems to be 3-D?
Comment by Laura
Comment by stephen
have you checked out stuff by Edward Gorey. He hates kids too.