Pope Francis hailed the artists as seers, dreamers and visionaries, welcoming some 200 of them to the Sistine Chapel during a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Vatican’s contemporary art collection on Friday.
While Francis noted that some of the artists present are confrontational in their work in order to make people think, he felt their goal was to achieve harmony and beauty. The beauty of art makes God desire, he said, and gives him glory.
“You want to reveal reality also in its contradictions and in those things that are more comfortable and convenient to keep hidden,” Francis said. “Like the biblical prophets, you face sometimes uncomfortable things; you criticize today’s false myths and new idols, its empty rhetoric, the ploys of consumerism, the ploys of power.
Among the artists present was Andres Serrano, whose 1987 photo Immersion (Piss Christ)showing a small plastic crucifix submerged in urine, outraged US politicians like US Senators Alfonse D’Amato and Jesse Helms, and led to funding cuts to the National Endowment of the Arts, which had supported its production.
“I was surprised to be invited and even more surprised that he gave me a thumbs up,” Serrano told the New York Times. “And I was very happy that the church understood that I’m a Christian artist and I’m not a blasphemous artist. I’m just an artist.
The pope also gave the artist a very special sign of encouragement.
“It was a big mischievous smile,” Serrano told the Time.
Also on the list were Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso, British director Ken Loach and British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor, reports the Time.
The Vatican collection has grown from around 1,000 works when Saint Paul VI inaugurated it in 1973 to some 9,000 today, including pieces by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Francis Bacon, Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana and Henri Matisse, according to Vatican News.
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