Padua, New Church of St. Agnes reopens after lengthy restoration

After a long recovery and restoration work started in 2015 thanks to the Alberto Peruzzo Foundation, theformer Church of Sant’Agnese, among the oldest architectures in the historic center of Padua, is now open to the public. After a series of cultural projects launched since 2011, the Fondazione Alberto Peruzzo finds in the Church of Sant’Agnese its new exhibition space: the home of the Fondazione will be a center of active culture, for the preservation, enhancement and promotion of the city’s historical - cultural heritage, but above all for the construction of a dialogue between the art of the past and that of today, the constituent purpose of the institution since its inception.

The Church of St. Agnes thus comes back to life, after first being deconsecrated and then turned into a machine shop in the 1950s. For this first event of returning it to the city, the Foundation is presenting until June 24, 2023, an initial exhibition layout curated by Riccardo Caldura, director of the Venice Academy of Fine Arts.

“The Church of St. Agnes will be an exhibition venue where the beauty of classicism, such as that of the findings made during the restorations, will be able to dialogue with contemporary and modern art, embracing a time span of almost a thousand years thanks to which once again we will try to discover how art is always contemporary,” emphasizes Alberto Peruzzo, president of the Foundation of the same name. “The task we have given ourselves by returning the former - church of Sant’Agnese to the community is not only to hold together the various components of the history of this place, but also to make it alive and active thanks to a future linked to contemporary arts.” In the main environment of the former church, a dialogue between ancient and contemporary pictorial experiences is activated, featuring three episodes from the life of St. Agnes, the very young martyr to whom the building was dedicated, painted between the 17th and 18th centuries, and an altarpiece by Giandomenico Tiepolo dedicated to St. Eurosia, St. Joseph and St. Frances Romana, along with three large works by Jannis Kounellis: two works part of the Closets series, created in 2016, and Untitled from 1996, a monumental work acquired by the Foundation and chosen for its intense drama as the centerpiece of the exhibition itinerary.

Placed in the former apse, perfectly opposite the entrance, the monumental sculpture consists of a wooden beam about four meters long with a pillow pierced by a dagger and marks the transition between the main room and the rectory.

“The opening of a new space for contemporary arts, in a city as dense with history as Padua is, is the fulfillment of a long journey, marked by responsibility and awareness,” explains Riccardo Caldura, who curated the installation. “Taking up an effective metaphor by Kounellis referring to his artistic conception ’I believe that my greatest ambition (to use a paradox) is to become a needle to sew everything together,’ precisely one of his works, a permanent acquisition of the Peruzzo Foundation (Untitled, 1996), has been given this function of ’stitching together’ between the past and the future prospects of the space.”

The second room, behind the former apse, displays contemporary works that are part of the Alberto Peruzzo Collection: examples of informal art such as the works of Tapies, Vedova, Dubuffet and Riopelle, of experimentation with new materials such as the works of Turcato and Manzoni, and examples of overcoming two-dimensionality as in the works of Fontana, which activate a direct dialogue with the research of Kounellis, especially at the beginning of his career; other works, such as the works of Nitsch and Paladino, instead relate back to the ancient paintings in the first room, addressing the theme of rituality in the first case and the human figure tending toward tragic in the second.

The reopening of the former Church of St. Agnes is also an opportunity to admire the remains of some Giottesque frescoes - still being carefully studied in collaboration with the Superintendence - displayed in an underground space along with fragments of a Roman road and medieval tombstones found during the various stages of the long restoration work.

For info: www.fondazionealbertoperuzzo.it

Hours: Wednesday and Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 6 p.m.

Padua, New Church of St. Agnes reopens after lengthy restoration

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