Maurizio Cattelan, the provocateur sculptor famed for duct-taping a banana to a wall and calling it art, has returned with his latest exhibition, a much-hyped show at Berlin’s Neue Nationgalerie. It’s billed as a survey, but in typical form for Cattelan, who once did a Guggenheim Museum retrospective in which many of his sculptures were strung together and hung in the center of the rotunda, the exhibition is something funkier than that.
The genesis of the show is equally funky. Cattelan, who was born in Padua, Italy, and is now based between New York and Milan, is this year’s winner of the Preis der Nationalgalerie, an award that has historically gone to artists with some connection to Berlin. That makes Cattelan a befuddling choice, the Neue Nationalgalerie has sought to position him as an artist with ties to the German capital. He co-curated the 2006 Berlin Biennale, the museum points out.
No, the banana is not in the Neue Nationalgalerie show, which is titled “NIGHT” and which was curated by Lisa Botti, working in collaboration with Klaus Biesenbach, the museum’s director, and Cattelan himself. But there are a few other famous works, including Him (2001), a sculpture of a kneeling Hitler that has previously proven controversial. There are also new works such as a sized-down version of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and Dust (2026), a fire extinguisher that Cattelan filled with human ashes.
The exhibition appears to be an unusually sedate affair, and that may be because Cattelan conceived it as something akin to a space for worship. “The Neue Nationalgalerie already has something ritualistic: its scale, symmetry, silence and distance from everyday life,” he said in a statement. “I imagined the space almost like a contemporary church: a central nave, side aisles and a sequence of presences.”
Below, a look inside the show, accompanied by descriptions of some of the works that Cattelan wrote for the exhibition.
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Never, 2003
Image Credit: ©Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz/David von Becker “A drummer continues beating his drum on the museum roof. He may be announcing something or repeating a gesture whose purpose has been forgotten. Persistence is difficult to distinguish from refusal.”
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People, 2026
Image Credit: ©Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz/David von Becker “Hundreds of pigeons occupy the ceiling above the visitors. Visible and invisible, they inhabit the museum without asking permission. The people we ignore never completely disappear.”
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Purgatory, 2026
Image Credit: ©Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz/David von Becker “A reduced Brandenburg Gate repeated inside the museum. A monument becomes a threshold between history and uncertainty. Every entrance also contains a judgment.”
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Him, 2001 (on floor)
Image Credit: ©Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz/David von Becker “A kneeling, childlike figure reveals the face of Adolf Hitler. Historical horror appears vulnerable, prayerful and almost harmless. Evil becomes dangerous when it asks for sympathy.”
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After, 2026 (at center)
Image Credit: ©Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz/David von Becker “A small dog sleeps inside a large industrial tube. A structure built for passage becomes an accidental shelter. Survival begins by giving the world another purpose.”
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We, 2010
Image Credit: ©Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz/David von Becker “Two identical figures lie together in the same bed. They suggest companionship, conflict, and the two selves that can inhabit the same person. We are rarely alone, even when no one else is there.”