Mostra “Opere del Tempo di Guerra”
“Wartime Works” exhibition
Coinciding with the time of Lent and Holy Week 2024, on the Fifth Centenary of Foundation of the Order of Theatines, sculptor Capri Otti (Luciano Capriotti), thanks to the sensitivity and welcome of the Rector of the Basilica of St. Andrew della Valle, Fr. Joao Marcos Boranelli, C.R. is exhibiting an exhibition of sculptures dedicated to the tragic events of war that so harshly, as unjustly, befell the martyred and brave land of Ukraine.
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Ambassador of Ukraine to the Holy See Dr. Andrii Yurash and the President from the International Religious Association St. Sophia Fr. Marco Yaroslav Semehen.
Even Art in the name of Beauty and Innocence brutally humiliated raises its cry loudly, “No more tears! No more blood!”
Presented are ten small bronzes, made with the ancient technique of lost-wax casting, “The Passion Angels”: a revisitation in a surreal and existential key of the Bernini angels of Ponte Sant’Angelo. Each angel holds an instrument of Christ’s passion: a metaphor for the pain inflicted on the innocent. Five sculptures (three terracottas and two bronzes) , the “Mourning of the Mothers,” depict a mother who with infinite tenderness picks up the body of her broken son, to place it back in the womb that gave birth to him, as if to breathe new life into him. From this sorrowful and powerful image came the project to create a monumental sculpture, a historical memorial and icon of this tragic war , to be donated to the city of Kiev.
Also presented are three glazed pottery “Wartime Doves”:
one is encircled by a crown of thorns, another is pierced by a nail, and the third has in its chest a splinter of a Russian missile fired at the city of Karchiv.
I firmly desired that the exhibition be accompanied by ten drawings of war refugee children executed with the coal and ashes of wheat fields set on fire during the invasion by the Russian army. I love these drawings and embrace their little Authors: in their hearts lies the hope of a new humanity, risen from the ashes of hatred and enmity, in which justice, freedom, peace and beauty can grow and flourish.
Capri Otti
The exhibition will be on view from Feb. 16 to April 5, 2024, in the Basilica Sant’Andrea della Valle, Rome.
Below we share images of the opening, flyers and a journalistic article in a magazine.
