Maurizio Cattelan’s Novecento: The Suspended Horse and the Stillness of a Century
Exploring the meaning behind Maurizio Cattelan’s Novecento — a taxidermic horse that reflects on time, mortality, and modern history.
On the opening day of the 2008 Biennale of Sydney, visitors wandered into the Museum of Contemporary Art and were met by an unexpected sight.
High above them hung a horse — still, suspended from the ceiling by leather slings, its head gently lowered as if in quiet surrender.
It was Novecento (1997), a work by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
For many, the encounter stirred a mix of awe and unease. The image of a horse — a creature so often associated with movement, freedom, and strength — now appeared frozen in time, weightless yet heavy with meaning.
The horse had not been taken from life for art; it had already passed, preserved through taxidermy — a medium Cattelan often used to explore the thin line between existence and absence. In Italian, “Novecento” means “1900,” a word echoing the 20th century and all its paradoxes: progress and exhaustion, glory and decline.
Suspended in midair, the horse seems caught between two worlds — no longer alive, yet not entirely gone. It becomes a symbol of an age that once raced forward with unstoppable momentum, only to find itself hanging still at its end.
There is something haunting in that stillness, yet also something peaceful — a pause, a reflection, a question.
It asks us to look beyond the surface, beyond discomfort, and into what it means for vitality to fade, for time to hold its breath.
Perhaps that is the quiet power of Novecento: it invites both empathy and contemplation, reminding us that even when movement ceases, the story does not end.
Silence, too, can speak — and sometimes it speaks of everything we cannot put into words.
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| Visitors at the Museum of Contemporary Art observe Novecento |
