Pope Francis will visit the Venice Biennale

Pope Francis will visit the Venice Biennale. The pontiff will visit the exhibition on Sunday, April 28 , during one of his visits to Venice. According to Vatican News, the organ of the Holy See’s Dicastery of Communication, Francis will be the fourth pope in history to land in the territory of the Serenissima: before him, only three popes had gone to Venice (Paul VI in 1972, John Paul II in 1985 and Benedict XVI in 2011). The program is being finalized: certainly, the pope will visit the Holy See Pavilion at the Biennale (dedicated to the theme of human rights), at the Giudecca Women’s Prison, and meet with the ecclesial community of the Patriarchate of Venice. The final program, a Patriarchate note specifies, will be announced soon.

The Holy See Pavilion will have an exhibition entitled With My Eyes, which takes literally the pope’s exhortation to go out and look into the eyes of other people: the invitation is meant to be to pay attention to all those realities that are so often considered peripheral, and which are often out of the cultural debate. It promises to be a level-headed pavilion: the commissioner, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, has in fact appointed Chiara Parisi and Bruno Racine as curators of the Holy See Pavilion, who will gather internationally renowned names: Maurizio Cattelan, Bintou Dembélé, Simone Fattal, Claire Fontaine, Sonia Gomes, Corita Kent, Marco Perego & Zoe Saldana, and Claire Tabouret. Also planned is the special participation of Hans Ulrich Obrist. An official press conference to present the project is scheduled in early March at the Holy See Press Office.

“We welcome with joy the news of Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy See Pavilion at the 2024 Art Biennale at the Giudecca women’s prison, which we respectfully interpret also as a gesture of attention to the entire Venice Biennale,” said Roberto Cicutto, president of the Biennale.

Image: Pope Francis. Photo: Alfredo Borba

Pope Francis will visit the Venice Biennale

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