St. Moritz Art Film Festival

Swiss Premiere

In Competition

For The Ghenie Chapels project, Adrian Ghenie has created two new, site-specific paintings that address the theme of contemporary martyrs of the church. On one side of the main nave, he depicts the crucifixion of Christians that takes place to this day in the Middle East and, on the other side, the martyrdom of Blessed Pino Puglisi, who was murdered by the Mafia in 1993.
These works of art were donated and permanently installed under the curation of Alessandra Borghese and thanks to the work of Father Giuseppe Bucaro, Director of the Cultural Heritage Department of the Archdiocese of Palermo. The creation of The Ghenie Chapels in Palermo originated from the desire and need for the contemporary collective imagination to confront the eternal. Ghenie’s artistic intervention makes the church a place of ecumenical and artistic pilgrimage.
The Ghenie Chapels situates itself in Palermo as the Matisse Chapel (decorated by the artist Henri Matisse between 1949-51) does in Vence, France, or the Rothko Chapel (the non-denominational church founded by John and Dominique De Menil with 14 works by Mark Rothko) does in Houston.