Per Barclay: La Strage degli Innocenti

For Art City 2025, Per Barclay reinterprets “La Strage degli Innocenti” (“The Massacre of the Innocents”) by Guido Reni with an installation curated by Patrizia Cirino and Denise Tamborrino inside the former Church of San Barbaziano, aiming to create a complex viewing experience and provoke reflections on vulnerability, contradictions, and the conflicts of our troubled times.

The former Church of San Barbaziano is being presented to the public for the first time following extensive restoration work that has reinforced its architectural structure while preserving its unique character as an urban ruin. Visitors will also have the opportunity to explore the space before its repurposing by AICS Bologna.

Per Barclay works within real space, transforming it into a fictional place and telling a different story.

War, profit, and markets are at the core of Barclay’s need to contemporise Guido Reni’s masterpiece. The visual oxymoron staged in his installation forces viewers to abandon conventional ways of seeing and thinking, opening up a new horizon of meaning. It invites a gaze that, like a mirror, moves in two directions—outward, toward the artwork, and inward, toward the observer.