Him

A major figure in contemporary art, Maurizio Cattelan takes a brazen, humorous approach to power. He takes iconic 20th-century figures out of their contexts, depicts them very realistically and blurs how we see them by setting them in unexpected situations.

A case in point is Him, a sculpture that offers the viewer a powerful theatrical and ethical experience. Approaching it from behind, the figure of a kneeling child comes into view. But walking around it, we come face-to-face with Adolf Hitler, who seems to be in the throes of a spiritual crisis. Depicting the supreme symbol of evil as a helpless child, Cattelan urges us to think about his humanity, and ultimately about humanity itself. "Hitler is everywhere. He is a ghost who haunts history; yet he is unspeakable, unreproducible, wrapped in a blanket of silence... I just want this image to trigger discussion or test our psychoses," he says.

One of Cattelan's signature works, Him is in the Pinault Collection. It has been on display in the collection's Venetian museums as well as outside their walls several times.