Deconsecrated Church as plaything of international capitalism

In the centre of Milan is born the Deloitte Gallery: an exhibition space opened inside the former church of San Paolo Converso. The opening is “Liturgical”, a work by Giuseppe Lo Schiavo generated with Artificial Intelligence. Everything is part of the new Milan campus of the consultancy Deloitte.

Cathcon: There is nothing liturgical about this art.  They are pretending a pseudo-religiosity to excuse this.

Gallery opens in Milan in a large deconsecrated church

From the redevelopment of the sixteenth century church of San Paolo Converso, a semi-hidden jewel between Corso Italia and Piazza Sant'Euphemia, the Deloitte Gallery is born in Milan. With the intervention of the British multinational, this space is being returned to the city as a meeting laboratory between art, business and technology, reinvented as a theater for exhibitions, events and interdisciplinary dialogues. “We want to invite the Milanese into the church, support the parish and the neighbourhood, promoting a real and participatory reopening”, explains the group's executive director, Beppe Pedone. Contextually at the opening of Solaria Space – the Milanese hub dedicated to artificial intelligence that follows the one opened in Rome – Deloitte Gallery presents a work by Giuseppe Lo Schiavo: an installation born from the direct encounter with AI.

San Paolo Converso becomes Deloitte Gallery

Integral to the Deloitte Campus project, the unconsecrated church of San Paolo Converso — still owned by the curia — dates back to the 16th century and was designed to house the Angelic Nuns founded by Ludovica Torelli. Inspired by the architecture of Milanese San Maurizio, over the centuries it has gone through many transformations: from warehouse to recording studio of the PDU label (1970-1982), until 2019 it hosted the architecture studio Locatelli Partners. There is no lack of a single chapter, with the 2017 installation by Asad Raza that transformed part of the nave into a tennis court. 

Cathcon's original story on the verbal nonsense they used to justify the tennis in a House of God

Today, preserving the original plant and decorations, San Paolo Converso is reconfigured as a meeting point between historical heritage and contemporary artistic avant-gardes. “It will not only be the 'home' of our over 6,500 Milanese professionals”, emphasizes Fabio Pompei, Ad of Deloitte Central Mediterranean, “but an open place to the city, a crossroads of dialogue between businesses, institutions, art and culture”.

Source

This would have horrified Saint Anthony Zaccaria, who founded the Angelic Sisters who originally occupied the convent.