Julius von Bismarck Zwei Wölfinnen (Wilde Mutter), 2024

Carved from wood, Zwei Wölfinnen (Wilde Mutter), is modelled on a version of the Capitoline bronze of a she-wolf. Placed on a round plinth, the large-scale figure collapses and reconfigures, revealing the elaborate construction that enables its continuous movement.

A politicized hybrid of the human fascination with the wolf, the Capitoline bronze—distributed in multiple variations across Italian sculptural representations—became a symbol for the capital Rome, when in the 15th century bronzes of two infants were added—the mythological founding fathers, Romulus and Remus. Bismarck’s sculpture leaves out the suckling infants, but the iconicity of the source lets observers almost unconsciously add them.

A further development of Bismarck's series of monumental collapsing sculptures presented in the artist's solo exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie in 2023, the new works emulate the mechanism of hand-held push-puppet toys with miniature animals. Yet, the collapse of the animal’s body into sections—and with it the dissolution of the initial illusion of the animal sculptures’ intactness—brings with it a heady mix of power, curiosity and, as with many contemporary encounters with animals, pity and perhaps shame.