Like fragments of a broken crown of thorns, the installation by renowned sculptor Helga Vockenhuber was initially presented in 2023 at the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, in collaboration with the Venice Biennale. The project, curated by Don Umberto Bordoni and with the support of Father Abbate Stefano Visintin OSB and the Institutional Director of the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore - Benedicti Claustra Onlus, Dr. Carmelo A. Grasso, is now presented at the Pantheon with a renewed and rethought image.
In dialogue with the space, a crown of thorns composed of seven bronze sculptures evokes the drama of human existence, reconciled through Christ's sacrifice. Symbolically, the crown of thorns is recognized as a distinguished relic of the Passion: it is the object that accompanies Christ until the consummation of his sacrifice.
"Corona Gloriae" by Helga Vockenhuber. Photograph by Ägidius Vockenhuber.
"The artist — whose work consistently explores the intrinsically religious dimension of the human and those liminal spaces of meditative stillness that open access to it — shifts her focus from the colossal, contemplative hermits of her earlier work to the crown of thorns in the Christian tradition. In this symbol, she distills the drama of redemption, the very foundation of Christian hope."
Don Umberto Bordoni, curator of the exhibition.
Strategically placed beneath the oculus of the Pantheon, the metal sculpture inevitably becomes a reminder of Christ's Passion and the martyrs' sacrifice. The sharp, twisted bronzes denote a disturbing burden of suffering, reflected in the mass of water on which they rest, as if suspended over the abyss.
"Corona Gloriae" by Helga Vockenhuber. Photograph by Ägidius Vockenhuber.
The seven fragments that make up the crown are significantly associated with biblical symbolism. In the context of the Jubilee Year, the installation is proposed as an intervention in which pain is no longer hermetically sealed, but is shared, to the point of being overcome. Through "Corona Gloriae," Helga Vockenhuber proposes a reflection on the language of contemporary Christian art and on the possibility that the suffering and search for redemption associated with Christ's Passion continue to represent an invincible call of hope for all humanity.
"Thus for her, each of these seven monumental bronzes that compose it here is translated into a sign of our destiny. Each reduced at times as it is to a branch broken by too much suffering. Torn from its roots by too much loneliness. Nothing other than a shred of that crown of thorns which sums up the entire human despair. And Helga, under this Eye of Heaven that opens in the vault of the dome, seems to have gathered them here like so many castaways from every sea of the Earth. Disfigured, mutilated creatures without a face. Only stems of roses now withered. Only a shred of sharp thorns that pierces both those who bear them and those who approach."
Prof. Giuseppe Cordoni, curator of the exhibition.
