Trained in Philosophy, art critic and director of the School of Arts at the Portuguese Catholic University, the Portuguese Nuno Crespo is the chief curator of the first Triennial of Art of Catholic Universities, an unprecedented project that brings together contemporary art, education and a global map of cities and universities. The curatorial programme will include emerging and established artists from all over the world, challenging them to reflect on today’s global issues, as the curator explains in an interview with idealista/news.
The invitation from the Vatican, beyond being “the work of a lifetime” and an “enormous responsibility”, he says, was a perfect match with what he believes in: “Art is the best thermometer for reading contemporary society”.
The theme of Art Cut – “Exercises in Empathy”, an initiative conceived by Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça – is a response to the current political and social moment. “We chose the theme of empathy because it is simultaneously an ethical, moral and political concept, but also an aesthetic concept,” explains Nuno Crespo. And the word “exercises” is also a very important concept, “because empathy, whether we are thinking about it in aesthetic or ethical terms, is not something that can be achieved once and for all. It really requires continuous, daily practice”.
The project will unfold across multiple geographies on several continents throughout 2026. The exhibition spaces are conceived within a hybrid logic that includes digital platforms, urban installations and collaboration with academic and artistic institutions.
And there could hardly be a better moment, given the state of the world, to bring together culture and education in a collective exercise of listening, reflection and dialogue.
Nuno Crespo
idealista/news
What led you to this invitation to be chief curator of the first Triennial of Art of Catholic Universities?
There was nothing particularly extraordinary, no especially striking event; it was a very natural interest and involvement. I studied Philosophy at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and, from a certain point onwards, I had two professors, José Gil and Maria Filomena Molder, for whom works of art were very important objects as philosophical problems. They were not just things we saw in museums or cinemas to entertain ourselves, but material constructions of philosophical problems.
Up until that point, I had followed a very typical path of a humanities student, very interested in issues of the philosophy of science. With them, however, the idea that there are objects that pose immense difficulties from the point of view of thought and reflection was what really captivated me.
I can add another factor to this: the desire that arose, I don’t quite know why, to become an art critic at the newspaper Público. I have always been a keen newspaper reader, and I think we should all like many newspapers — they are very important as sources of knowledge and nourishment for democracy. I insisted, insisted, insisted, and went through a blind test — at the time the culture editor was Bárbara Reis — and I joined as an art critic. From there on, it was a normal path. A normal path, but not one that came from a family background connected to the arts; it was an event within the university linked to these two very striking figures, who made me discover that artistic objects indeed convey a very differentiated and very important vision and knowledge of the world.
Artistic objects convey a very differentiated and very important vision and knowledge of the world.
Is art meant to provoke us?
That is precisely what we want from art: that it provokes us in various ways. Not only the provocation we might expect — political provocation and reaction — but to provoke a range of things: thought, reflection, pleasure. I think contemporary art sometimes forgets this very important element, which is pleasure — a pleasure that is very different from others, but still pleasure. We might call it “satisfaction”, but there is indeed pleasure when we watch a film we like, see a theatre play, a painting, a sculpture, or listen to a piece of music.
Art is an absolutely privileged object from the point of view of our constitution as human beings. There is no art without a body, without material, without a hand that makes, a hand that composes, a mind that thinks. There is an expression I like very much, although it is quite metaphorical, but very clear, by Schiller, a German philosopher and one of Kant’s earliest readers, who says that “man is the unhappy middle ground between the angel and the beast”. Art is exactly a reflection of that: you need to dirty your hands, but at the same time you need a highly developed reflective capacity.
The question is inevitable: how did you feel when you received this invitation?
When someone receives an invitation like this from the Holy See, one cannot help but feel deeply honoured, but with that honour comes an enormous sense of responsibility. It is a global contemporary art event that has never been done before, and that gives you that good kind of nervousness — the kind that makes you want to act, that gives you energy and sets things in motion. In the plural, because although I am the chief curator, we have an extraordinary team inside and outside the Vatican, together with Catholic universities around the world that are involved.
At the moment, we are all in a period of reflection on what model we want for this global art event that would distinguish it from others. The world is fortunately full of universal exhibitions; there are many international art events, with many artists travelling around the world showing excellent work, with very diverse and high-quality curatorial proposals. The challenge is to understand what we can do that is not a repetition of the model of international exhibitions, whether they are the Venice Biennale, São Paulo, Sydney or Sharjah.
But yes, at this moment the feeling is one of immense honour and, I must confess, it is the work of a lifetime. The invitation to direct the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University was a brilliant invitation. Being at the service of an institution like the Portuguese Catholic University and at the service of thinking about what it means to teach art, what an art school is in 2026, is an enormous honour.
How did the idea for this first Triennial of Art of Catholic Universities come about?
During his pontificate, Pope Francis created a dicastery — the name the Roman Curia gives to ministries — for culture and education. The Prefect, who is the Minister, is Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça, and under his responsibility lie these two vast worlds: education and culture.
The Triennial is born, first of all, from the enormous investment that the Vatican, through Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça, has been making in contemporary art, through multiple projects — not only the participation with official Holy See pavilions at the Architecture and Visual Arts Biennales in Venice, but also a very strong contemporary art project on Via della Conciliazione in Rome, the street that leads to St Peter’s Square, which has generated encounters with many artists and attracted a great deal of attention from the artistic community. To this attention that the dicastery has generated through its relationship with contemporary art is added its responsibility for Catholic education around the world.
The idea — which was the challenge put to me — was to think of a global contemporary art event that would at the same time involve Catholic universities spread across the world.
Contemporary art, and here I am quoting Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça, “is the best thermometer for reading contemporary society”, with all its fractures, but also its capacity for welcome, discovery of new geographies and beauty, in all the dimensions that contemporary society possesses. Contemporary art is excellent for establishing multiple dialogues with what is happening around us, and institutions such as Catholic universities or the Vatican itself need these instruments in order to establish fertile, inclusive dialogues of proximity with contemporary society. The Triennial is born from the union of these two elements — art and education — which for me is a dream.
Which cities will be involved?
This is part of the conceptual framework that gave rise to the project. That said, we selected 10 universities in 10 different cities around the world, where 10 different exhibitions will take place, starting to open in September 2026. The cities are Lisbon, Paris, Milan, Boston, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, Bogotá, Luanda, and two that are still to be confirmed.
The idea is that each of these cities, under the general theme “Exercises in Empathy”, will work on a sub-theme, creating ten different positions with local curators. This is therefore a collective, collaborative project and one of great dialogue. We are not interested in arriving in these different geographical and cultural contexts and imposing a visual, aesthetic or exhibition model, but rather in thinking together with these cities and universities about what kind of exhibition makes sense in September 2026.
The Triennial has these two flows. On the one hand, it seeks to ensure that the proposals made locally are relevant to that specific social, artistic and university context. On the other hand, all these exhibitions will come together in a final major exhibition in Venice in February 2027. It is as if all these exhibitions travel from the ten cities around the world and meet in Venice for an exhibition that will be a kind of synthesis — where it will be impossible to bring all the works, but where the central works from the exhibitions spread around the world will be present.
So the Triennial will have Nuno Crespo as chief curator, but it will also have these co-curators — wonderful people who have already been identified and are already working, and who are fundamental.
The Art Cut cities are Lisbon, Paris, Milan, Boston, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, Bogotá, Luanda, and two still to be confirmed.
Is this concern with geographical and cultural diversity, respect and empathy a positioning of the Vatican in relation to the current state of affairs?
When a project like this is decided upon, there is no prescriptive intention; it is an instrument for dialogue and joint work. It is no coincidence that the theme of this first edition of the Triennial is “Exercises in Empathy”. Empathy is closely linked to the current political and social moment, and without empathy there can be no artistic experience.
We chose empathy because it is simultaneously an ethical, moral and political concept, but also an aesthetic one. If I do not have empathy, I will not be able to be moved by a film, I will not be able to be moved by a painted figure, I will not be able to understand a character in a novel. And the term “exercises” is also very important, because empathy — whether in aesthetic or ethical terms — is not something that can be achieved once and for all. It truly requires continuous, daily practice. Exercise carries this demand for daily practice, without which we fall out of shape.
What is it like to experience something so free within an institution like the Vatican, which from the outside seems very strict?
I can only say that I have been director of the School of Arts at the Portuguese Catholic University for almost ten years, and I have never felt constrained in any way. Our project, both at the Portuguese Catholic University and at the Triennial, is not a religious project. In the case of the Triennial, we are creating a contemporary art event that brings together two things which, in my view, should always go together: education and art. How can we, through practice and exposure to different artistic practices, create freer citizens, more critical citizens, more capable of thinking for themselves?
These are not religious projects, although there are principles linked to the Catholic Church. But they are not prescriptive projects imposing any kind of morality, religiosity or even spirituality. Being Catholic or religious or spiritual is not a criterion for an artist to participate in the Triennial. It is a truly free exercise.
If we think of the Portuguese case, we have an extraordinary example in Brotéria, in Bairro Alto — a place where there are exhibitions, courses and reading clubs, and which is a house of freedom. Brotéria’s project is remarkable not for catechisation, but for the freedom and quality of knowledge it provides to the community in which it operates.
What concerns us most in the Triennial is to offer visitors — and we hope many will visit the different exhibitions — excellent content, experiences and works that leave a mark, that impress, that make people think differently and have experiences they would not otherwise have had. That is the objective.
Are there names or works that immediately came to mind that you would really like to include in this project?
Yes, there is a list of artists. From February onwards we will start to reveal the artists, the list of artists and the exact locations. We know the cities, but the exhibitions will not take place inside the universities. In some locations, we will establish partnerships with cultural institutions, whether museums or artistic spaces, in the cities where the Triennial will be present.
Where does architecture fit into art?
Exhibitions, unlike art books, have a defining characteristic, which is dialogue with the place — with the place where we work. There is no possible exhibition that does not take into account how the experience of a work is spatialised. Whether the work is a painting hung on a wall, a sculpture placed on the floor, an image projected onto a wall, or a sound filling a room, the experience of space is always decisive. That is why seeing a work in a book is different from seeing it in a physical location — not only because of scale, but because of the object quality that all works of art possess.