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09 April 2015

Ben Quash principal consultant to Venice Biennale installation

Ben Quash, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at King's (ASK) has been the principal theological consultant to one of the three works chosen for the Vatican Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Ben Quash, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at King’s (ASK), has been the principal theological consultant to one of the three works chosen for the Vatican Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. 

The Vatican has just announced the three chosen artists who will represent it at the Biennale, which opens in May 2015. The three young artists come from different parts of the globe - Africa, Latin America and Europe.

It is the European artist, Macedonian-born Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, with whom Ben Quash has been working on her ambitious installation Haruspex. The work is a response to the prologue of John’s Gospel, in which the Word is described as ‘becoming flesh’. Her sanctuary-like tent is made of discarded animal flesh.

This is only the second time that the Holy See has had a pavilion at the Biennale, representing a new commitment to engagement with the world of contemporary art.