Trienal ART CUT opens in Lisbon with the theme “Exercises in Empathy: Returning Home”
“Exercises in Empathy: Returning Home” is the theme of the ART CUT exhibition in Lisbon, the first Triennial of Catholic Universities, held under the inspiration of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See and organised in Portugal by Universidade Católica Portuguesa. On display at three venues across the city, the exhibition can be visited at the University, Brotéria, in Bairro Alto, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), in Chiado.
The official opening of the exhibition, which took place at Católica, was attended by the President, the Secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Archbishop Carlo Maria Polvani, the Secretary of State for Culture, Alberto Santos, and the Patriarch of Lisbon and Grand Chancellor of the University, D. Rui Valério. Also present were the Triennial’s chief curator and Director of Católica’s School of Arts, Nuno Crespo; the co-curators in Lisbon, MNAC Director Filipa Oliveira and Brotéria Artistic Director João Sarmento, SJ; as well as artists, patrons and guests.
With a specific theme in each city, the ART CUT Triennial is built around the overarching concept of “Exercises in Empathy”. It brings together an international network of universities to explore the role of university education, human relationships, and the relationship between empathy and art. The initiative reflects the spirit of what Pope Leo XIV states in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas on artificial intelligence. In relation to the project, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, proposes that it should be a “School of Empathy”, encouraging dialogue between aesthetics and ethics and interdisciplinary conversation across all fields of knowledge. In this context, the Triennial is an international initiative taking place throughout 2026 and 2027 in eight cities across seven countries: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Santiago (Chile), Bogotá (Colombia), Boston (USA), Milan (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), Luanda (Angola) and Venice (Italy). It brings together more than 100 artists and 14 curators.
“ART CUT is a unique project, based on a simple idea: that the University is a space where knowledge is produced through the convergence of languages and perspectives, and that art has a programmatic role as an expression of the multiplicity of voices that make up our magnificent humanity,” said the President of Católica. In her address at the opening, Isabel Capeloa Gil also stressed: “Universidade Católica Portuguesa is honoured to host this project in global empathy. By its very nature, the university is universal, open, restless and hospitable; it is a mother, an Alma Mater, an empathetic mother, and a place to return home to. I hope this gathering will not simply be a place to which we return once, but an exercise in empathy repeated every day.”
Reading a message from Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça, the Secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Archbishop Carlo Maria Polvani, noted that “this stage of the Triennial of Catholic Universities has become a journey through the Portuguese capital, exploring three dimensions of dwelling: the home as form, the home as community, and the home as a space for the body.”
Referring to artists as “true maestros of the School of Empathy”, in the words of Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça, which he conveyed, he further emphasised that “empathy begins when we allow ourselves to be moved by inequality rather than becoming accustomed to it. Returning home is a process of humanism and civilisation that involves everyone. Reaching out to others and including them is what transforms an aesthetic experience into an ethical one. Each of us, as individuals and institutions, is called upon to become a home for someone. That is what a university is for, and that is what art is for.”
The Secretary of State for Culture, Alberto Santos, noted that “we owe artists the works of art that allow this conversation to continue. I hope that, after experiencing them, we will recognise something in our own homes that we had not noticed before, or gain a better understanding of what it means for someone else to have a home to return to.”
The ART CUT Triennial in Lisbon features more than 30 Portuguese and international artists selected by the curators. These include works by Andreia Santana, Aires Mateus, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Ana Vieira, Augusto Alves da Silva, Carlos Bunga, Cristián Salineros F., Daniel Blaufuks, Délio Jasse, Dimakatso Mathopa, Francesca Woodman, Gordon Matta-Clark, Heidi Bucher, Helena Almeida, Irineu Destourelles, João Abel Manta, João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, Julião Sarmento, Lara Almárcegui, Maria Beatriz, Martha Rosler, Mona Hatoum, Nicolás Paris, Patrícia Garrido, Pedro Costa, Rafa Bqueer, René Tavares, Taysir Batniji, Vanderlei Lopes and William Eggleston.
“Stepping outside ourselves may be the condition for returning to ourselves with greater truth, because identity also matures through a willingness to welcome what is different. Art has a unique power to foster this movement, since a work of art does not merely confirm what we already know. It can shift our gaze, restore a sense of presence to what has become invisible, and open us up to experiences we cannot fully control. In this sense, artistic creation is a form of hospitality,” said the Patriarch of Lisbon and Grand Chancellor of Católica, D. Rui Valério, in his closing address.
The ART CUT Triennial will be on display at the Fundação Amélia de Mello Gallery, at Católica, until 12 December. The exhibition at Brotéria runs until 14 November, while the exhibition at MNAC remains open until 24 January 2027.