This is a historic first. Pope Francis will visit the 60th Venice Biennale International Contemporary Art Exhibition. Its theme: “Foreigners Everywhere” (Foreigners Everywhere) is indeed at the heart of its concerns. Never before has a sovereign pontiff attended this great mass of the world artistic scene.
The Holy See has only participated since 2013. In 2018 it also began to take part in the Architecture Biennale. Ten chapels were then installed on the island of San Giorgio. This may seem strange as the Catholic Church was one of the greatest patrons during its two millennia of history, faith an eminent source of inspiration for artists and their works an indispensable vector of the religious message.
The pope, who has canceled all his international trips for several months to save his strength, will travel to Venice on Sunday April 28. Three meetings are planned for his first trip of the year to Italy. Among them, a stop at the pavilion of the Holy See at the Biennale, including the exhibition entitled “With my eyes”will be dedicated to human rights and marginalized people.
Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, has appointed Chiara Parisi (director of the Center Pompidou-Metz) and Bruno Racine (director of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice) as curators. Among the artists exhibited are Maurizio Cattelan, Bintou Dembélé, Simone Fattal, Claire Fontaine, Sonia Gomes, Corita Kent, Marco Perego & Zoe Saldana, Claire Tabouret. “The artistic proposal takes literally the words of the Pope when he urges us to look in the eyes and pay attention to situations considered peripheral and excluded from the cultural debate” explains the Holy See. Francis will be the fourth Pope to visit the City of the Doges after Paul VI in 1972, John Paul II in 1985 and Benedict XVI in 2011.
