The facade of the Vatican Apostolic Library is now covered by a giant wave 70 meters wide and 30 meters tall. French artist JR’s work DILUVIUM is the first artwork in the library’s history commissioned specifically for its exterior, and it also unveils the AQVA exhibition — the first show of the library’s new five-year program Catastrofe e Meraviglia (Catastrophe and Wonder). AQVA examines water’s duality through a dialogue between archival documents and contemporary creations, with exhibits spanning a 1557 ancient text and contemporary interpretations by a typographer, closing with the restoration laboratory — water is both the main cause of damage to paper and the tool for restoration and preservation. The exhibition explores how a natural element can be both a threat and a source of knowledge, creation and life.
DILUVIUM enlarges Gustave Doré’s 1866 engraving depicting the Biblical flood to the scale of the building itself. A vast body of water hovers on this 16th-century facade, turning a biblical image into a contemporary reflection on how fragile the things a library safeguards truly are: water is both a direct threat to books, documents and archives, and a metaphor for forces difficult to control. For JR, this wave points to climate change, the accelerating development of artificial intelligence and the uncertainty of the future.
In the continuation indoors, the Barberini Hall screens the black-and-white film UNDAE, bringing the wave’s momentum into a contemplative space in dialogue with the exterior work. JR describes many of his works as “building bridges” — between fear and hope, between an old building and a wave that isn’t eternal.
FAQ
Q: What specifically does the exhibition include?
A: AQVA is curated by Don Giacomo Cardinali, Simona De Crescenzo, Francesca Giannetto and Delio Proverbio. The documentary core is two volumes of Aquatilium animalium historia, published in 1557 by Ippolito Salviani with the library’s support, paired with manuscripts, printed books, engravings and objects, threading observations of the aquatic world across eras from Apicius’ De re coquinaria to travel accounts, marine fauna studies and coins.
Q: What’s the exhibition period and opening hours?
A: AQVA opens to the public from September 25, 2026 and runs through May 14, 2027.
Source: A wave at the Vatican. Diluvium by JR, at the Vatican Library | METALOCUS
