Artwork details - EVN Sammlung

Richard I. the Lionheart
Maurizio Cattelan

stuffed rabbit and glass
23 × 9 × 22 cm
1996

Acquisition 1996
Inv. No. 0001

Maurizio Cattelan´s work always provokes, and he is successful in revealing the commonplace and acting politically by using remarkably simple means.

Richard I., the rabbit with the eyes of a lion, allows those with a background in history to grasp the lighter side of the work more rapidly, than if it had a lion’s heart, which would not be visible. A lion’s heart would disfigure the rabbit; turn it into a shapeless lump. The English king of the same name was incarcerated in Lower Austria on his journey home from a crusade, and his ransom used for important city buildings.

The clear intellectual reference to the work to Lower Austria, to the business that has its main focus in Lower Austria, is a good example of regionalism without provincialism.

Georg Kargl, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)