Divine Creatures: great works come to life at the Vatican Museums thanks to differently-abled actors

It is scheduled from January 23 to March 3, 2018, at the Vatican Museums, the exhibition Divine Creatures, curated by Micol Forti, which after its success at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence therefore moves to Rome: in the hall of the Museums, the public can admire ten photographic works by Leonardo Baldini in which as many masterpieces of art have been recreated with special actors, that is, children, children, women and men with disabilities.

Ten works, from the Renaissance to the early 20th century, recreated thanks to disabled actors, arranged to create an iconographic path around the life of Jesus: thus reviving works by Antonello da Messina, Rosso Fiorentino, Caravaggio, Titian, Antonio Ciseri, Giuseppe Montanari and other important painters. The review also includes an exhibition of props and backstage images on the photo set that involved the work of 45 people including the disabled and their families and 20 technicians including makeup artists, costume designers, set designers, lighting and photography directors.

"With Divine Creatures," comments Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, "a very refined artistic product has been created, of high photography, inspired and mediated by great artistic masterpieces, which cannot but touch the heart of each of us. But Divine Creatures is also something else: it is the serious and meticulous technical and professional commitment of many months of work and the result of a deep respect for disability."

The exhibition is free admission, although visitors are required to wait in line to enter the Vatican Museums and go through normal security checks. The masterpieces recreated thanks to disabled actors include Antonello da Messina’sAnnunciation, Andrea Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ, Rosso Fiorentino’sAngiolino musicante, Titian’s Christ and the Cyrenean, Ludovico Cardi’sEcce Homo known as Cigoli, Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus andAnnunciation, Gerrit van Honthorst’sAdoration of the Child, Antonio Ciseri’s Transporting Christ to the Sepulcher, and Giuseppe Montanari’s Kiss of Judas (the latter is the only work from the Vatican Museums’ collections recreated as part of the project). Exhibition conceived by Adamo Antonacci-Stranemani International and realized together with Silvia Garutti, with curatorship by Micol Forti. The exhibition catalog is published by Mandragora and contains texts by Adamo Antonacci, Leonardo Baldini, Micol Forti, Barbara Jatta, Andrea Mannucci, Antonio Natali, and Timothy Verdon.

Divine Creatures: great works come to life at the Vatican Museums thanks to differently-abled actors

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