Vatican Museums' Graphic Arts on display in Minneapolis in the sign of encounter
By Paolo Ondarza
A rare opportunity to admire 20th-century works on paper from the Vatican Museums alongside masterpieces of the past that have inspired them. This exceptional exhibition is hosted at the Thrivent Art Gallery in downtown Minneapolis: 27 works from the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums and 29 from the Thrivent Art Collection.
Dialogue, Encounter, Discovery
Dialogue, encounter, and discovery are the specific features of an exhibition that opens to the public from April 22 to June 25. Joanna Reiling Lindell, director of the Thrivent Collection of Religious Art and Corporate Art Collection, and curator alongside Francesca Boschetti, assistant curator of the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums, describes it as an "epochal exhibition".
"The dialogue between the works of both collections," emphasizes Barbara Jatta, "is an occasion of great enrichment that confirms the importance of being open to exchange with other institutions and of creating a fruitful dialogue between our collection and others."
According to Micol Forti, curator of the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, the exhibition is "an excellent opportunity to understand how sacred subjects have been a fundamental model through the centuries".
Eight Sections
Eight sections make up the exhibition’s itinerary: The Creation of the World, The Old Testament, Madonna with Child, The Life of Jesus, Peace and Angels, The Apocalypse, The City, and Prayer.
Graphic Art, Tradition, and Renewal
Inaugurated by Pope Paul VI in 1973, the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art now boasts over 9,500 works of art, including 4,000 on paper: drawings and prints by masters such as Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Edvard Munch. The works on display from the Thrivent collection include works by Pablo Picasso, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Elizabeth Catlett.
"Usually considered a field for specialists, graphic art is actually a privileged observatory for understanding the often unusual paths chosen by artists in search of new expressive modalities, new forms, new symbols," explains Francesca Boschetti:
"This exhibition - she continues - stems from an encounter. The encounter between works of graphic art - drawings, engravings, prints - from two different collections. Also, an encounter between artists who, as the title says, have worked and lived in different centuries. The exhibits range from the 15th century to the 21st. It is also an encounter between different visions of “sacredness”. The works that Joanna Reiling Lindell and I selected contain similar themes within them, they tell how artists from different periods look to the past and draw inspiration from tradition to renew it, surpass it, and propose new visions, new symbols".
This exhibition is an invitation to “discovery”. Why?
Because the works on paper on display, for conservation reasons, are usually kept in the dark, in the shade of the warehouses. They are fragile works, they need special treatment and so this exhibition provides a possibility to discover them. This can happen only for very short periods, to preserve them for the future as well. "Discovery" also because graphic art is an area considered for specialists, but in reality, it holds many surprises for those who approach it. It is an area that, especially starting from the beginning of the 20th century, has been used by artists as a sort of laboratory, an ideal place within which to experiment with new things and graphic techniques. To name just the most important ones: woodcut, etching, aquatint, and, moving closer in time, lithography, linocut. These are all techniques that require a lot of work by the artists and a profound knowledge of materials, chemistry, but that offer a truly infinite range of possibilities.
Contemporary artists continue to learn ancient techniques, reusing them to give life to new linguistic, stylistic, and expressive possibilities. "Discovery" because the public will have the opportunity to see, with their own eyes, that tradition is still a well from which to draw ideas that can turn into new proposals. Contemporary artists draw from this well and from the artists of the past. The comparison and dialogue that have been created among the exhibited works confirm this constant vitality.
The Bible as a reference and inspiration unites both past and contemporary artists...
Contemporary and even Renaissance and 17th-century artists look to the Sacred Scriptures. The Sacred Scriptures are, in fact, the beating heart of this exhibition. To accompany the visitor, we thought of structuring it like a journey, divided into sections, that opens to the city. Some precious papers allow us to enter large squares: St. Peter's Square first of all. Sacred buildings dominate the spatiality of the square. A wonderful print by Piranesi is flanked by two works by Paul Klee and Lyonel Feininger. Then you move inside spaces where prayer is central. We find two absolute masterpieces: an engraving by Rembrandt, next to which a woodcut by Munch shows how the artist was inspired by his predecessor, changing the atmosphere and preserving the heart of what was the moment of recollection and meditation of the represented subject. And right next to prayer, finally comes interpretation, the always varied and different declination of the Sacred Scriptures, starting from Genesis, from the creation of the world. Here we see works by Miró, the French Dulac, the Dutch Muller side by side. And then we continue with the Sacred Scriptures. The Old Testament with few but beautiful images: Picasso, Otto Dix, Max Ernst's companion, Dorothea Tanning. Then we enter into episodes of the life of Christ. The entire itinerary dedicated to this long, articulated, and narrative story sees distant artists dialoguing and showing how these texts have been inspirational and have crossed the centuries. We then have tender moments when the Virgin holds the Baby Jesus, the Baptism of Christ. And then the moment of the encounter with Pilate, the Flagellation, the Crucifixion, up to the Deposition and finally the Resurrection. In this section, we find artists of the calibre of Goltzius, Matisse, Dürer, Elizabeth Cutler, and again Luca di Leida, Sandra Boden, Chagall, Rouault, Dürer, Rembrandt, Marino Marini. It is truly an abundance of visions and declinations.
There is a section dedicated to the Apocalypse…
The comparison between two great masters. Albrecht Dürer with his four horsemen in his magnificent engraving and next to it four lithographs by Rufino Tamayo, a Mexican artist who gives it a completely renewed interpretation: he shows how the example of the ancients remains a reference point.
Thinking about what is happening in the drama of war characterizing these hours. Does the exhibition offer a message?
It is needless to underline how this penultimate chapter has ties with what is happening in the world and with how art always has a sense, a present and attentive look at what reality suggests, at what is happening. We wanted to conclude this journey with two beautiful works by Picasso and Braque, two doves of peace that we hope will be auspicious for the future of all.
For all images of works from the Thrivent Art Collection of Minneapolis (MN): Photo courtesy of Thrivent."
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