Converting the Relic

Converting the relic revolves around the circulation and maintenance of myths and the values, monetary or emotional, that they may hold. The works installed here form a dialogue between a performance (documented in a looped video) and the material remnants collected during the act itself. Evocative of cradling and caring, the performed gesture that initiated this exhibition primarily aims to pick up on and translate the concern for restorative justice inherent to Caravaggio's The Madonna of the Rosary. 

Just as the emphasis on certain aspects of a story may eclipse the story's very essence, so too the aura of an artwork - emanating, arguably, mainly from the artist's technical skill and conceptual cunning - may inadvertently blend out of the socio-political motivations that fuelled its creation in the first place. Lara Bellenghi's installation proposes how admiration can be legitimized by more nuanced dynamics than set-in-stone notions rooted in scandal or sensationalism.