Exhibitions
The Vatican Museums bring their most contemporary sacred art to Barcelona
The Diocesan Museum hosts until December 8 a selection of 20th-century paintings and sculptures that revisit the figure of Christ through masters such as Renato Guttuso, Marino Marini, Giacomo Manzù and Carlo Carrà.
This autumn, Barcelona becomes the setting for an unprecedented encounter between two cultural institutions. The Diocesan Museum of Barcelona presents Arte sacro italiano del siglo XX de los Museos Vaticanos , an exhibition that, for the first time, establishes a collaboration between the Vatican Museums, directed by Barbara Jatta, and the Barcelona museum, under the direction of Monsignor Robert Baró i Cabrera. The exhibition, which can be visited from September 24 to December 8, 2026, brings together a selection of works from the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums to explore the transformations of Italian sacred art throughout the 20th century.
The proposal starts from a central figure of the Christian tradition, Christ, to address issues that transcend the religious sphere: suffering, violence, human fragility, redemption and hope. Through paintings and sculptures by masters of recognized international prestige, the exhibition shows how artists of the last century reinterpreted evangelical episodes and symbols of faith to connect them with the conflicts and concerns of their time.
Among the artists present are Mirko Basaldella, Felice Carena, Carlo Carrà, Pericle Fazzini, Salvatore Fiume, Gerardo Dottori, Renato Guttuso, Marino Marini, Giacomo Manzù, Francesco Messina and Fausto Pirandello. The selection also includes works by authors less known to the general public, but relevant in the development of Italian sacred art of the 20th century, such as Aldo Carpi, Giuseppe Montanari and Antonio Giuseppe Santagata.
Curated by Rosalia Pagliarani, from the Department of 19th Century and Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums, with the collaboration of c2c Exhibitions, through its directors Helena Alonso and J. Óscar Carrascosa, the exhibition takes as its starting point an exhibition presented in 2022 at the Carlo Maria Martini Diocesan Museum in Milan. The Barcelona version proposes a journey articulated in four areas that explore the different ways of approaching the figure of Christ, from crucifixions linked to collective suffering to contemporary reinterpretations of the biblical tradition.
The selection highlights in particular the way in which artists incorporated the political and social tensions of the 20th century into their works. Crucifixions become symbols of the pain caused by wars and dictatorships, while representations of the Passion allow connections to be made between the religious narrative and experiences of persecution, injustice and vulnerability. In this context, the works of Manzù and Basaldella exemplify the capacity of sacred art to dialogue with contemporary reality and turn sacrifice into a reflection on the human condition.
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