Veronica, Veronica: Sagra Feast: A sagra feast held during the course of the Veronica, Veronica exhibition

A sagra feast performance by artist Adriana Gallo will be held during the course of the "Veronica, Veronica" exhibition to commerate St. Veronica’s feast day on Saturday, June 28th.

The story of St. Veronica does not appear in the four canonical gospels; rather than a biblical figure, her’s is a story that has evolved endlessly over centuries, a true Christian legend. The most widely accepted version was affirmed in the 13th century Bible en françois of Roger d’Argenteuil. In this iteration, Veronica encounters Jesus on his journey to Golgotha, where he will be crucified. Seeing Jesus’ suffering, she wipes his brow with her veil, resulting in the transfer of a perfectly replicated image of his visage. The exchange is charged with eroticism; his bodily fluids are quite literally enmeshed in her cloth, an intimate encounter that results in an image that marks one of his final moments in the earthly realm. The Veil of Veronica, held at Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and said to quench thirst, cure blindness, and raise the dead, would therefore predate the Shroud of Turin, a more widely known relic of cloth imprinted with Christ’s crucified body. 

Veronica, Veronica considers image generation, transference, and exchange in a post-truth age, one marked by pessimism and disillusionment, as postpandemic social isolation and widely-circulated internet misinformation have fueled a crisis of faith in just about every corner of modern life. The exhibition draws together artists who play with ideas of artistic doubling, replication, and the inherent contradiction of the “perfect” copy, sometimes creating works that intentionally manipulate or distort imagery. Systems of ritual, care, worship, and devotion are also centered, as works rendered in a wide range of materials tease out ideas of fact and fiction, resulting in objects imbued with commitments to beliefs both personal and collective. Many of the works featured play up the material vernacular of ancient traditions, employing the time intensive processes of hand weaving, sewing, metalsmithing, and slip casting, creating works steeped in virtuosic care for making. Here, artists are considering systems of faith anew, reimagining image reproduction and veneration for an era short on hope for just about anything.