Maureen Mullarkey strikes again

…with one of her best posts:

Pope Francis, the Venice Biennale and the Vaccuum of Belief

Regarding patronage of the arts by the Roman Catholic Church, in the last few years attention had centered on the pseudo-Byzantine kitsch of the notorious Fr. Marko Rupnik. He is, by the way, still very active and in good standing, thanks to Pope Francis’s support. And his artwork is now and then still displayed prominently at official functions in Rome.

The Rupnik saga tended to overshadow another aspect of recent Church patronage: the attempts, mainly by the Vatican (Cardinal Ravasi!)and certain Western European prelates, to make a home in the Church for the “official” contemporary art of the West. We have posted on this site reviews of books on this art and sometimes of actual exhibitions of it, e..g.,

Siccardi, Cristina, The Art of God: Sacred Thoughts, Profane Ideas (2017)

The Art of the Council (Exhibition in 2012)

De Kerros, Aude, Sacré Art Contemporain: Evèques, Inspecteurs et Commissaires (2012)

Indeed, we have covered the main featured artist of the 2024 Vatican Pavilion:

Another Masterpiece of Modern Art (John Paul II hit by a meteorite)(2014)

In America, this type of artwork has had a more limited exposure in the Catholic Church (as opposed to the Episcopal church, the museums or the art galleries). Examples:

“Frenzy into Folly” at St Paul’s, New York (2013)

And especially:

Heavenly Bodies Part I; Heavenly Bodies Part II (2018)

Now Pope Francis has visited the Vatican Pavilion at the Venice Biennale which is a showpiece of such art. Maureen Mullarkey’s article shows us work of the artists featured there or favaobly mentioned by the Pope in an address. I hope you won’t be shocked by these images! For me, what is shocking is not the art – after all, they only create the same stupid things again and again – but the personal endorsement given it by the Bishop of Rome.

In a final bizarre and kitschy publicity stunt, the Vatican involved inmates of a womens’ prison in the preparation of the pavilion. So in Venice the Church combines toadying to the representatives of movements patronized by the rich, government bureaucracies and upscale art galleries with outreach to “victims” who I suspect haven’t the faintest idea what this “art” is about. The 2024 Vatican Pavilion is the latest demonstration (here, in art, but also in morality anfd finance)of the ever closer integration of the Catholic Church into the governing establishment of the West.