Rome Will Host a Team of Giant Horse Statues Starting Next Month

Rome is going to have a lot more horses than usual this fall. Artist Gustavo Aceves is bringing his equine-focused exhibit to the city’s Colosseum and Trajan’s Market starting next month, according to The Art Newspaper. 

Lapidarium consists of 55 massive horse statues. It's already been on view in Berlin in honor of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and, in its early forms in 2013, in Pietrasanta, Italy. Aceves’s larger-than-life-sized horses are made of marble, bronze, iron, and other materials, and are meant to represent the plight of modern immigrants. 

“A horse can represent long wanderings, which can nowadays contain experiences of migration and a life in a foreign country,” the website for his Berlin show explains. “Loss, breach of trust, and fears are feelings, that all migrants—no matter in which country—share.”

The horses are in various states. Some are nearly whole, while others are stripped to reveal rib bones, hearts, and vertebrae. The statues are placed within shells of boats, echoing dangerous migrant journeys across the water.

The Roman exhibition runs from September 15, 2016 until January 7, 2017.

[h/t The Art Newspaper]

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