MAURIZIO CATTELANAT BLENHEIM PALACE

12 September — 27 October 2019

Exhibition guide

A

VICTORY

IS NOT AN OPTION

ABOUT BLENHEIM ART FOUNDATION

In 2014, I established a programme of modern and contemporary art exhibitions staged in the interiors and grounds of my family home, Blenheim Palace. I have been a passionate collector of art for a number of years, and my brother, the 12th Duke of Marlborough, shares this long-standing interest from his time in New York in the 1980s, during which he spent time with artists such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Every year we invite artists to engage with Blenheim Palace’s rich setting and offer something new to our visitors. Showing work by living artists reminds us that the Palace is not a place frozen in time, but a living, ever-changing national monument to culture of all kinds. Every successive generation of Dukes has brought new art, design and collections of artefacts to the Palace — some of which seemed radical and out of place at the time — that have now become part of the Palace’s very fabric. Art from different times can co-exist happily, and together creates a rich tapestry of visual culture across the centuries.

Through Blenheim Art Foundation’s exhibitions, we hope to challenge, educate and excite visitors. We hope to introduce new audiences to the work of some of today’s finest living artists, and provide seasoned art viewers with new ways of seeing contemporary artwork, in this most unique of settings. We hope you enjoy the show.

— Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill

‘Reality is far more

provocative than my art.’ - MAURIZIO CATTELAN

ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONVictory is Not an Option

Victory is Not an Option is an exhibition of contemporary art by Maurizio Cattelan, organised by Blenheim Art Foundation.

Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960, Padua, Italy) is an Italian conceptual artist known for sculptures and installations that address the darker and more difficult parts of history and society with a dry and distinctive wit. With his work, Cattelan seeks to turn a mirror back on us to examine our reactions when confronted with uncomfortable topics and invites us to have conversations about the past, the present and the future. He once said to this effect that ‘Reality is far more provocative than my art’.

Victory is Not an Option brings together some of the artist’s seminal pieces — many of them shown for the first time in the UK, — alongside new artworks created for the show. Taking into account Blenheim Palace’s martial and political history, the exhibition explores themes of nationality, unity and division, war and the power of personality through the lenses of childhood, history, religion and pop culture.

Blenheim Palace, a monument to national power, here becomes the site of deeper questioning into the stories we are told and the histories we are taught. An exhibition that speaks to adults and children alike, Victory Is Not An Option is at times witty, at times profoundly stirring. ___________________

Before you start your visit, please be aware that some artworks in this exhibition deal with sensitive subjects which some visitors may find challenging. If you want to discuss any of these further, please ask to see one of our information assistants, who will happy to help.

KEY

1. Great Court

2. Great Hall

3. North Corridor

4. West Side Great Hall

5. South Corridor

6. China Ante Room

7. Green Drawing Room

8. Red Drawing Room

9. Green Drawing Room

KEY

10. Saloon

11. First State Room

12. Second State Room

13. Third State Room

14. Long Library

15. Chapel

16. Water Terraces

17. Stables Arch

18. Churchill’s Birth Room

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GREAT COURTVictory is Not an Option, 2019

A great walkway of British Union Jack flags leads up to Blenheim Palace, welcoming you on arrival. The sight can be as warmly familiar as it can be alienating. With this site-specific artwork, Cattelan questions the meanings we attribute to flags and nationality, their power to inspire both love and hatred, to evoke feelings of belonging and difference.

Winston Churchill – who was born at Blenheim Palace in 1874 – was vocal about his mistrust of the Union Jack’s symbolism, implying once that it was an imperialist symbol full of ‘flag-planting’ connotations, alluding to Britain’s history of colonialism and political conflict.

As a national monument steeped in British heritage and tradition, Blenheim Palace itself represents a quintessential ‘British-ness’, making it a poignant place to question what it means to be British, both historically and today.

1

GREAT HALL We’ll Never Die, 2019

We’ll Never Die is a monumental copy of the flag-bearing arm of Emmanuel Frémiet’s 1874 sculpture of Joan of Arc in Paris. Joan of Arc is considered a national heroine of France for leading the French army to victory against the English in 1429 during the Hundred Years’ War. Captured a year later, Joan was burned at the stake by the English.

Joan of Arc occupies a complicated space in the public imagination. For many, she is a youthful embodiment of leadership, courage and patriotism. She has, however, also been adopted as a symbol by the far right, representing a conservative France resisting foreign influence, and Frémiet’s original statue in Paris is the site of annual May Day gatherings of far-right leaders.

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Like the flag display outside the Palace, Cattelan’s We’ll Never Die references ideas of national pride and identity, but also suggests the violence that these can engender. Flags, after all, find their origin in war, and Joan’s battle standard mirrors the many military flags and banners that decorate the Palace.

CHINA ANTE ROOMGlory Glory Hallelujah, 2019

Three horse skulls wearing gold armour look down at us. Like Joan of Arc in the Great Hall, these works depart from the usual tradition of equestrian sculpture depicting valiant steeds ready for battle.

As a war hero himself, the 1st Duke of Marlborough wove much military imagery into the design and decoration of Blenheim Palace, notably in the Marlborough Tapestries depicting the Duke’s military victories that hang in the First, Second and Third State Rooms.

Rather than glorious and full of vitality, Cattelan’s horse skulls reveal the darker sides of war such as the death and injury that befell many horses on the battlefield, innocent casualties to human desire, necessary sacrifices to the victory and prosperity that ensued.

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GREEN DRAWING ROOMLessico Familiare, 1989

Lessico Familiare (‘Family Syntax’ in Italian) is considered Cattelan’s first artwork. The small framed image shows the artist forming a ‘hand heart’ over his naked chest, adopting the body language and smouldering appeal of a teen heartthrob or male pin-up.

Self-portraits recur throughout Cattelan’s oeuvre. Rarely conventionally flattering, they use humour to question traditional modes of self-representation. In this work, Cattelan addresses the “celebrity” status often given to successful artists.

Placed in the Green Drawing Room, surrounded by portraits of the Spencer-Churchill family, the work asks us to consider how portraiture is used to signify status and importance.

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GREEN DRAWING ROOM Untitled, 2000

Another unusual self-portrait can be found near Lessico Familiare – this time not in a frame but dangling by the back of his top. This cartoon likeness of the artist – his features exaggerated and expression stony – is hung up like a discarded coat.

Here again Cattelan turns traditional self-portraiture on its head by making himself the butt of the joke. Displayed in the Green Drawing Room, Cattelan ‘hangs’ alongside the framed portraits of the 1st Duchess and 4th Duke of Marlborough, asking us to reflect on the ways we are used to seeing influential and powerful people represented.

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RED DRAWING ROOMNovecento, 1997

Cattelan has used taxidermy since the 1990s to explore the emotional relationships and cultural associations between humans and animals. This taxidermy horse is one of the artist’s most iconic works.

With its principally domestic, agricultural, sporting and military associations, the horse is one of Britain’s national treasures. This work invites us to consider how we feel when we see a horse – usually associated with power and grace – in this submissive position.

The title Novecento (‘Nine Hundred’) is an Italian term for the twentieth century, as well as the name of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1976 film tracing the rise of Italian fascism. Created just before the turn of the millennium, Cattelan’s horse may symbolise a country exhausted by a century of upheaval and violence. The horse – usually a symbol of strength – is here worn and tired; perhaps embodying a look back at the last century and a warning about the future.

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SALOONWe, 2010

We is a mysterious and chilling double self-portrait of the artist, waxy-faced in dark funerary clothes and laid on a small bed, as if inviting visitors to attend his funeral wake.

Like Cattelan’s other self-portraits, this one attempts to break down the mythology of the ‘great artist’, instead showing Cattelan passive, vulnerable and mortal. Cattelan here presents himself laid down to be scrutinised by visitors, perhaps alluding to his own status as someone with many personas to be consumed by the public.

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STATE ROOMS – Can you spot it? Untitled, 2019

Untitled encompasses two major tenets of Cattelan’s work: self-portraiture and the critique of power. Untitled is a gold version of Cattelan’s original work Untitled (2009), which saw his distinctive profile encased in a taut black rubber boot.

The black rubber boot references the uniforms promoted by both Italian Fascist leader Mussolini and Hitler. Italian Fascism used the colour black as a symbol of the movement, calling its paramilitaries the ‘Blackshirts’. In this work, Cattelan explores his Italian heritage and the memory of Italy’s wartime experience. He images political and social oppression through a sculpture that that is – quite literally – suffocating, using the symbols of the very movement he criticises.

By remaking the work in gold for his exhibition at Blenheim Palace, Cattelan perhaps suggests that we should watch out for history repeating itself under different guises.

THIRD STATE ROOMEgo, 2019

Did you know that the oldest known piece of taxidermy isa crocodile that has hung from the ceiling of a little churchin Ponte Nossa, Italy, since the sixteenth century? Scholars have suggested that crocodiles were likened to dragons, as in the biblical tale of St George, thereby making a church a fitting place to display them as captives.

The crocodile is here exhibited as counterpoint to Cattelan’s horse, Novecento. Crocodiles, like horses, are animals loaded with cultural meaning – usually as the razor-toothed antagonist of children’s stories. The tale of St George notably portrays the horse as a valiant steed and the scaly ‘dragon’ as the foe.

As a country house, Blenheim Palace has a history of taxidermy, with generations of Dukes bringing back hunting trophies from their travels. Here the usually frightening crocodile is also put on display – like a trophy or exotic captive, reflecting the themes of victory and ‘otherness’ that are inscribed in the Palace’s history and imagery.

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SECOND STATE ROOMLa Nona Ora, 1999

Cattelan brazenly drops a meteor on a likeness of Pope John Paul II. It seems to suggest that even the holiest man in the Roman Catholic tradition may not be safe from misfortune.

The work has been interpreted in various ways. Some read it as a comment on the Catholic Church’s reputation for harbouring scandal beneath its moral surface. Others have seen it as suggesting that even the most established seats of power can become vulnerable.

The Church is an institution dazed and changed by our increasingly secularised world. The Pope could be a symbol of resilience and re-invention; a call to find new languages for perennial faith and culture to survive and adapt. Blenheim Palace also represents an institution of historical prosperity that must evolve: it is a vestige of the past, but also a national monument for Britain today.

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LONG LIBRARY Him, 2001

Walk down the Long Library and you may notice what appears to be a small schoolboy in prayer. As you draw near, this eerie figure is revealed to be Adolf Hitler, looking skywards as if seeking forgiveness.

Hitler’s face is instantly recognisable – a harsh reminder of a single man’s power to create horror and pain that would change the course of history. Significantly, Blenheim Palace is the birthplace of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, generating a poignant historical encounter between two wartime enemies who never in fact met face-to-face.

This powerful work within this historical setting can spark important conversations about national memory, repentance and the importance of never forgetting in order never to reproduce the mistakes of the past.

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LONG LIBRARYUntitled, 2003

Untitled is an animatronic sculpture based on the protagonist of Günter Grass’s 1959 novel The Tin Drum, which tells of a boy who wills himself to stay a child as he lives through World War II. The boy’s most prized possession is his drum, which he plays when he is fearful or confronted with danger. In one key episode, he disrupts a Nazi rally with the pounding rhythm.

The motif of the drumming becomes like an act of resistance or a warning. Indeed, the idiom ‘to beat a tin drum’ means to create a disturbance in order to draw attention to a cause. The drummer boy could be symbolic of much of the exhibition: a call for caution, for us to look to the past in order not to repeat its mistakes.

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CHAPELOliver and Tom, 2019

Cattelan often confronts viewers with uncomfortable aspects of real life in order to provoke discussion. Oliver and Tom depicts two tramps, huddled in the Chapel pews. This work draws attention to these ‘invisible’ citizens, who populate our cities yet do not belong anywhere.

Displayed at Blenheim Palace – a stately home as much as a public monument – Oliver and Tom highlight the inequalities in our society and the different lived experiences that exist alongside each other.

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CHAPELOthers, 2011

Enter the Chapel and feel the gaze of hundreds of eyes upon you! Cattelan’s 200 taxidermy birds take over every nook and cranny, appearing to put the visitors under surveillance.

This work was first exhibited under the name Turisti (Tourists)at the Venice Biennale in 1997. Cattelan compares tourists to flocks of common birds that gather together in public spaces. The title humorously references Venice’s reputation for swarms of pigeons and foreign visitors, which at times can be considered nuisances.

Shown here at Blenheim Palace – also a popular tourist destination – the work gently pokes fun at the nature of being a visitor, turning the attention back on to us.

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STABLES ARCH (GREAT COURT)Untitled, 2018

Cattelan’s Untitled is a miniature replica of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome, complete with copies of Michelangelo’s fifteenth-century ceiling frescoes and The Last Judgment behind a tiny altar.

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes are among the best-known images in Western art, emblematic of the grandeur and artistic pinnacle of the Italian Renaissance. Here a present-day Italian artist actively copies and shrinks the masterpiece, questioning the value we attach to ‘the original’.

Cattelan suggests that the act of copying can in fact be an act of creation, making something new of something that already exists. Here, in the context of Cattelan’s exhibition, a pint-sized copy becomes a new original artwork.

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WATER TERRACESDaddy, Daddy, 2008

Amongst his storybook characters and fallen leaders, Cattelan presents us here with the beloved hero of Walt Disney’s Pinocchio, who appears to have met an untimely demise in the Palace fountain.

The sculpture references the episode in which Pinocchio rescues both his father and Jiminy Cricket from a whale, but tragically drowns in the process. The title Daddy, Daddy seems to be his cry for help and protection that goes unanswered.

Daddy, Daddy, like many of Cattelan’s works, questions who we learn from and look up to. Pinocchio is an unlikely young hero – a little boy who shows great bravery and sacrifice. Yet in his characteristically wry manner, Cattelan reminds us that not all heroes live happily ever after.

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CHURCHILL’S BIRTH ROOM America, 2016

America is a solid-gold toilet that visitors are invited to use during their visit to Blenheim Palace. As an extravagant object made to fulfil the most mundane of purposes, the work highlights how we all share the same bodily needs and functions, regardless of economic or social difference. The gold toilet images an American Dream: an elite object made available to all.

While making a comment on the inequalities in our world today, particularly in capitalist America, the work also asks us to reflect on Blenheim Palace’s own identity as a place built on ideals of social hierarchy and wealth.

You can visit America at Blenheim Palace by booking a time slot at the Palace Visitor Centre.

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SECRET LOCATION – Can you find him in the Palace? Mini-Me, 1999

Mini-Me is an inquisitive, toy-sized likeness of Cattelan. As we see in other self-portraits in the exhibition, Cattelan often depicts himself in an unexpected and diminutive manner, questioning the ways we traditionally like to represent ourselves.

The title of the work is borrowed from the 1997 film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, in which the villain ‘Dr. Evil’ has a miniature sidekick who looks and acts identically.

Mini-Maurizio Cattelan cheekily sneaks into Blenheim Palace – filled with its portraits of Dukes and Duchesses – to infiltrate the site and its history in the same way as the artist himself does with this exhibition.

BLENHEIM ART FOUNDATIONBlenheim PalaceWoodstock, OX20 1PPUnited Kingdominfo@blenheimartfoundation.org.uk

Website: blenheimartfoundation.org.uk Instagram: blenheimartfoundation Twitter: @BlenheimArtFacebook: blenheimartfoundation

Special thanks:

MAURIZIO CATTELAN ARCHIVE

& with gratitude to:

Artwork illustrations by Pentagram Design.

Photograph of Blenheim Palace by Pete Seaward.

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