Arch Hades' 'Return | Ritorno' Explores Existentialism in Deconsecrated Venetian Church

Arch Hades presents 'Return | Ritorno', an exhibition at the Scoletta Battioro e Tiraoro di Venezia, a deconstructed early 17th-century church in Venice. The show grapples with life, death, and self-actualization through existentialist philosophy. A site-specific sculpture, 'Sphinx' (2026), greets visitors with questions like 'Am I the sum of my experiences?' and offers the answer 'You are the sum of your choices.' Hades, who rejected religion after learning Mary was impregnated at 14, turned to existentialism, citing Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. The centerpiece, 'Return' (2025), is a 22-panel piece depicting Greco-Roman forms in various states, emphasizing the inevitability of death. Other works include 'Isle' (2025), a tribute to San Michele, Venice's cemetery island, and 'Murmuring Bark' (2025), where trees speak verse. The 'Confessions Series' features poems on crumpled-paper sculptures. The exhibition plays with religious motifs—altar pieces, confessionals, disembodied voices—to argue that sublimity must be self-created.