IV EDITION - APPROACHING PATHS: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS FACING THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY

For the FOURTH edition of APPROACHING PATHS: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS FACING THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY, the main theme proposed to the selected young artists is THE GLORIOUS BODY.

The «sacred image» has always been fundamental in Church's life. However, from the 18th Century onwards, a rift between art and faith seems to have been increasingly carved out over time. For many decades the Church has tried to get back to this dialogue developing and experimenting with new languages and new symbols. But looking at all the intervening actions towards churches since the Second Vatican Council, what has really happened? During all these years we have witnessed proclamations, exhortations, declarations of intent. However, the results have not always met expectations, indeed. It is like we live in a kind of “creative” deadlock, as a result of which the invoked gesture to create cult images appears awkward, disoriented. There was also a lack of critical analysis of the endless number of produced images.

APPROACHING PATHS are meant to be a workshop in which we try to stitch up this fracture and make a small concrete contribution, in particular on a methodological level.

«THE GLORIOUS BODY» is the main theme of the IV edition of PATHS.

Young people are offered a step-by-step path, which is full of spiritul and iconographic meetings, but also artistic comparison led by Andrea Dall'Asta SJ, Paolo Sacchini and with the collaboration of Claudia Manenti. The main objective is to create a work that, without betraying the language of each artist, is able to express the figurative sensibility of the Church with the renewed depth. Young artists are offered an experience of encounter with Christian spirituality and guidance through the process of their artistic creation. The intention is to fully respect the work of the young people that are involved, supporting them in an artistic pursuit that is simultaneously faithful to the content of the Christian faith, so that it can be returned in a way that the believing community can recognize in it.

1. The first stage consists of the selection of the young artists.
2. The second stage involves the setting up of some seminars regarding the proposed theme.
3. The key moment of PATHS is the retreat at the Sanctuary of La Verna (AR). Father Francesco Brasa leads the artists into the heart of the silent encounter with God. Everything is inspired by Francis' experience who received the stigmata in this place in 1224.
4. The fourth stage involves the review of the sketches that the young artists are kindly invited to submit before the realization of their work.
5. Work realization and final review.
6. Work submission.
7. All finished works will be exposed at DEVOTIO 2024.

Participants are asked to interpret the iconography of the resurrection. The young artists have to reflect the main elements which are written in the pages of the Gospel. Among the main themes there is the one regarding the encounter with the Risen One, the beauty of the glorious body and life beyond death. All central elements of the Christian experience.

As already shown in the three previous editions of PATHS, bringing art and faith together is still possible and necessary. Indeed, the Church has always developed images throughout history that have made its faith visible through pictures.

What Cardinal Lercaro claimed in 1955 is still nowadays true: "Each moment of history tells in the language of the living the praise of the living God".

With the collaboration of Fondazione Culturale San Fedele di Milano