Lipizzaner 508 Neapolitano Thais XL (b. 11.04.2005)

This work centres on Lipizzaner 508 Neapolitano Thais XL, a horse of Slovenia’s national breed, presented in 2009 as an official state gift to Muammar Gaddafi. The exchange formed part of a diplomatic gesture between Slovenia and Libya, in which Slovenia received a camel in return. Despite the symbolic reciprocity of the exchange, neither animal left its territory, rendering the gesture one of suspended circulation—an exchange enacted symbolically but never materially fulfilled.

As a political gift, the horse operates as a living embodiment of national identity, mobilised within the logic of cultural diplomacy. Yet its function is undermined by a biological condition: a genetic flaw manifested in its hives, which disqualifies it from producing certified lineage within the strict protocols of Lipizzaner breeding. The animal cannot transmit its bloodline, interrupting the very system of continuity and inheritance it is meant to represent.

Cibic frames the horse as a contemporary Trojan horse—a gift that carries within it the conditions of its own failure. Rather than facilitating exchange, it exposes the limits of circulation, revealing how political gifting can operate as a gesture that cannot be realised beyond its symbolic value. The promise of transmission—of lineage, of ideology, of alliance—remains structurally incomplete.

In the photographic work, the horse is depicted with a speculum inserted in its mouth, a device traditionally used to force it open. This gesture reverses the familiar adage “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” insisting instead on inspection, exposure, and scrutiny.

Within this framework, the work reflects on the instability of political gifts as instruments of cohesion. What appears as an offering of unity is revealed as a controlled construct, dependent on systems of validation, circulation, and belief.