Pope in Venice: ‘Art is a city of refuge for humanity'

By Lisa Zengarini

“The world needs artists.” This was the message Pope Francis imparted on Sunday morning as he met with a group of artists the Holy See is exhibiting at its pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale.

Addressing the group in the Church of La Maddalena in the Giudecca's women's prison facility, the Pope praised artists as true visionaries who can see beyond the boundaries of our world.

No human being is a stranger

“Beside you, I do not feel like a stranger,” he said, “I feel at home.”

The Pope noted that this feeling “applies to every human being,” because, “art has the status of a ‘city of refuge”, a city that “disobeys the rule of violence and discrimination in order to create forms of human belonging capable of recognizing, including, protecting, and embracing everyone”, starting from the least of society.

Recalling that the Old Testament established the “cities of refuge” to offer offenders asylum and protection from revenge until their case went to trial, Pope Francis invited artists to imagine cities “that do not yet exist on the maps” where” no human being is considered a stranger.” 

“It would be important if the various artistic practices could establish themselves everywhere as a sort of network of cities of refuge, cooperating to rid the world of the senseless and empty contrasts that seek to gain ground in racism, xenophobia,  inequality, ecological imbalance and in the ‘fear of the poor’."

“Behind these contrasts," Pope Francis observed, "there is always the refusal of the other. There is the selfishness that makes us function as solitary islands rather than collaborative archipelagos.”

Art educates to contemplation

Pope Francis then delved into the title chosen for the Holy See’s Pavilion at the Art Biennale of Venice, “With my eyes”.

“We all need to be gazed at and to dare to gaze at ourselves,” he said, and Jesus teaches us to do so: “He gazes at everyone with the intensity of a love that does not judge, but knows how to be close and to encourage.”

Art, the Pope observed, educates us to this perspective. “It is not possessive nor objectifying, but neither indifferent nor superficial, it educates us to a contemplative gaze.”

Valuing the uniqueness of femininity

Bringing his address to a close, Pope Francis expressed his hope that contemporary art may also help us value the contribution of women to humanity.

“There are joys and sufferings that unite in femininity in a unique form, and which we must listen to because they have something important to teach us,” he said citing, amongst others, famous female artists such as Frida Khalo, Sister Mary Corita Kent and Louise Bourgeois.

Pope Francis concluded his speech by inviting those present to keep in their heart the question Jesus addressed to the crowd, regarding John the Baptist: “What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? Then what did you go out to see?” (Mt 11:7-8). That question, he said, “impels us towards the future.”