Divine Creature

project conceived by Adamo Antonacci
exhibition curated by Associazione “Noi da Grandi”
exhibition catalogue: Empoli, chiesa di Santo Stefano agli Agostiniani, 6-31 December 2024

edited by Adamo Antonacci

The catalogue Divine Creatures concludes an ambitious project that combined painting, photography and disability. Born from an idea of Adamo Antonacci and hosted at the chiesa di Santo Stefano agli Agostiniani Empoli. The project re-enacts a selection of 10 celebrated works of sacred art that illustrate Christ’s human story. Antonacci conceived mises-en-scène of tableaux vivants, from the Incarnation in the Virgin Mary’s womb to the supper at Emmaus, interpreted by those with different abilities. These living paintings were realized with particular attention to the individual participants’ specific needs and masterfully immortalized by the photographer and post-producer Leonardo Baldini’s objective of displaying them alongside their models, where one can hardly distinguish the original from the “copy”. Antonio Natali writes in his essay, “An exhibition of rare beauty. Not only because the photographs are beautiful, but also because the invention is beautiful.” He also underlines the project’s unique quality and its extraordinary research on equality in an essay that accompanies the reader in the technical, biblical and human analysis of the exhibition. The catalogue ends with an essay by Andrea Mannucci dedicated to the history of the body on the path of diversity: a historical background that retraces the concept of “normal and different”, starting with Ancient Egypt and ending with the recent institutions of the Paralympics.