The Vatican has tapped Italian provocateur Maurizio Cattelan for its Venice Pavilion.

The Vatican revealed on March 11 that Cattelan will create an outdoor installation that incorporates works by eight artists; it will be located at the Giudecca Women’s Prison. Inmates at the prison will help create several of the artworks.

Cattelan is best known for sculptures and installations that invite controversy, making him a somewhat surprising representation for the seat of the Catholic Church. His headline-grabbing works include a kneeling Hitler and the sculpture The Ninth Hour (La Nona Ora), a life-size wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II on his side, seconds after being struck by a meteorite. The Ninth Hour was exhibited at multiple institutions, including the 2001 Venice Biennale. 

His art became a viral sensation in 2019, when, at Art Basel Miami Beach, Perrotin gallery premiered Comedian, a banana duct-taped to a wall. It sold for $120,000, and was ultimately eaten by artist David Datuna. The second iteration of Comedian, on display at Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art in 2023, was similarly ingested, this time by a South Korean student.

Cattelan’s Venice commission will consist of a 12-minute video installation directed by actor Zoe Saldaña and her husband, Italian director and producer Marco Perego. Inmates will play characters in the film, and some have also contributed photographs of themselves as children for a piece by the French artist Claire Tabouret. The Lebanese American artist Simone Fattal was also invited to create an installation that used poems written by the inmates.

7 min read

Who was the First Female Councillor in Oxford?

International Women’s Day (8 March) is a time to reflect on and promote women’s political participation. In Oxford, the City Council bucks the national trend with equal numbers of female and male councillors, in a wider context in England where only 36% of local councillors are female compared to 64% male.[1] But we know that has not always been the case, and there was a time when there were not only structural and social barriers but legal barriers preventing women’s democratic participation in local government. So who was the first female councillor in Oxford and what do we know about her?

Women were only legally allowed to stand in local elections after the Qualification of Women (County and Borough Councils) Act received Royal Assent on 28 August 1907.[2] The Act removed the disqualification of women from sitting on public bodies for which they were entitled to vote.[3] It provided that a woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for election as a councillor or alderman of a county council or borough council (including metropolitan boroughs).[4] It meant that women could finally stand for election of town and city councils including in Oxford.

In November 1907 elections were to be held three months after the Bill was passed. Outside London seventeen candidates stood for election including Miss Mary Sophia Merivale in Oxford.[5]

Miss Merivale held a campaign meeting at SS Philip and James’ infant schools shortly before the election. On her candidacy she said she was standing because “quite simply a woman was wanted and other better qualified women were not able to come forward and so she had accepted the invitation”. She added that “…there were among the business of the city council… matters more intimately connected with women and children which had to be dealt with, and a woman’s knowledge and practical detail ought to be helpful in dealing with them”. She stressed that she “had come forward as a representative of no political party” and noted that she “had never taken part in the agitation for women’s suffrage and always had consistently denied to sign any petition either for or against it”.[6]

Speakers at the event supported Miss Merivale’s bid for election. One stated it “as a means to promote efficiency…there was great gain in having women brought into places for which they had both knowledge and experience.” Another speaker described Merviale’s candidacy as “a new experiment” and she was “a most excellent and competent candidate”. A third observed that while she was the “women’s candidate” he preferred to think of her as the “children’s candidate” because if children’s interests were to be represented, they must be represented by people who cared for them”.[7]

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