Vatican’s sound pavilion

The Vatican will answer the 2026 Venice Biennale with a sound-based show built around listening, not painting or sculpture. (theartnewspaper.com) The Pavilion of the Holy See is titled “The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul,” and it is set to run from May 9 to November 22, 2026, during the 61st International Art Exhibition in Venice. (artnews.com, labiennale.org) Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers are curating the project with Soundwalk Collective, and the announced participants include FKA Twigs, Brian Eno, Patti Smith, Jim Jarmusch, and Devonté Hynes. (theartnewspaper.com, artnews.com) The exhibition is organized around Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th-century Benedictine abbess, writer, healer, and composer whose music and mysticism have long held a place in Catholic culture. (artnews.com, catholicculture.org) That focus puts the Vatican pavilion slightly sideways to the usual Biennale rhythm, where national pavilions often lean on objects, architecture, or large installations. Here, the Holy See is framing listening itself as the central act. (theartnewspaper.com, artnews.com) The project will unfold across two Venice sites: the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites in Cannaregio and the Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice in Castello. (artsy.net, theartnewspaper.com) The Holy See first joined the Venice Biennale in 2013 with a pavilion inspired by the Book of Genesis, and it has used later editions to test other formats, including prison-based and site-specific projects. (theartnewspaper.com) This year’s roster is unusually heavy on musicians, filmmakers, and poets for a national pavilion, which is why coverage has treated the artist list itself as part of the story. (artnews.com, theartnewspaper.com) The broader Biennale will be the first art edition after curator Koyo Kouoh’s death, but the exhibition she shaped, “In Minor Keys,” is still scheduled to open in Venice on May 9, 2026. The Vatican pavilion’s emphasis on sound now lands inside that larger program. (labiennale.org, theartnewspaper.com) For the Vatican, the bet is that a pavilion about hearing can hold its own in one of art’s most image-saturated events. Venice will test that in public starting next month. (artnews.com, labiennale.org)