News

IMG_7263 Spirito Creatore 2 “Spirito Creatore” at the Museo del Duomo
opens 500th Anniversary Celebration


May 10, 2017
– Mount Tabor Ecumenical Centre for Art and Spirituality announces the opening of Spirito Creatore, an exhibition of contemporary sacred art by Susan Kanaga, an American Protestant woman (Orleans, Cape Cod), and Filippo Rossi,an Italian Catholic man (Florence, Italy), at the newly opened Il Grande Museo del Duomo, (Florence Cathedral Museum) in Florence, Italy.

The opening of the Spirito Creatore exhibit is the inaugural event of the International Symposium, The Arts and Ecumenism: What Theology Risks in Artistic Creation, celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.

Mount Tabor Centre,
together with the Institut Supérieur de Théologie et Art of the Institut Catholique de Paris, the Faculté de Théologie Protestante of the Université de Strasbourg, the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Facoltà Teologica dell’Italia Centrale (Florence), the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and the Community of Jesus is presenting this international symposium with events in Paris, Strasbourg, Florence (May), and New Haven, CT and Orleans, MA (October).

The symposium will discuss Catholic and Protestant approaches to the arts through history, theology, liturgical contexts, and post-Vatican II developments, with specific references to areas of exchange between American and European viewpoints. Speakers include: Timothy Verdon, William Dyrness, Ben Quash, Jerome Cottin, and many others.

The exhibit will be on display in Florence from May 10 – June 11, and then will travel to Cape Cod where it will be displayed at the Community of Jesus in Orleans in October 2017. In addition to exhibitions in Florence and Cape Cod, this monumental installation will be presented in Paris, Strasbourg, and New Haven via video. (https://youtu.be/75vx6rL1Q8o)

This monumental installation, inspired by the New Testament account of Pentecost and entitled “Spirito Creatore,” refers to God’s creating of the world and breathing life into human beings; the Spirit who hovered over the primordial waters and covered the Virgin Mary with his shadow; the Spirit poured out by the resurrected Savior who redeemed humanity by his cross. The same Spirit works in the artists, enabling them to communicate through beauty. United by their faith in Christ, both artists are interested in the power of color and materials beyond literal representation — an abstraction rich in iconic suggestion, able to accompany deep listening to God’s Word.

http://www.lanazione.it/firenze/cultura/riforma-protestante-mostra-convegno-barga-1.3100553?wt_mc=fbuser

IMG_0912 Susan Kanaga and Filippo Rossi Timothy Verdon with Susan Kanaga and Filippo Rossi