Kiko Argüello, initiator of the Neocatechumenal Way, has received the ‘Per Artem ad Deum’ medal, awarded each year by the SacroExpo Association to artists or institutions whose artistic achievements contribute to the development of culture and human spirituality. It is the only award that It is sponsored by the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See. The award ceremony took place in the church of the Redemptoris Mater seminary in Rome, precisely an example of the art that Kiko Argüello has developed throughout the world sponsored by the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council.
At just 20 years old he received the extraordinary national painting prize in Spain, but abandoned his promising career as a painter due to an existential void that led him to live among the poor of Madrid. It is there where the Neocatechumenal Way was born, thanks to his encounter with Carmen Hernández. From that moment of conversion and with the expansion of this Christian initiation to bring those far from the Church to faith, has promoted a new aesthetic that accompanies this progressive approach to faith. Their contribution is not limited to a single genre. Painting, architecture, sculpture, music and poetry have been some of the fields in which he has stood out.
In this sense, Andrzej Mochón, president of Targi Kielce and SacroExpo, stressed at the award ceremony that “Kiko’s work goes far beyond the traditional activity of artistic creation.” “Through painting, understood as a reflection of the light of God, and music, a universal language capable of opening the heart to the dimension of the spirit, he finds a way to announce the Gospel to contemporary man.” And not only that, because it says «his artistic vocation at the service of the Church and of his liturgy, composing music for the Psalms, other passages of Scripture, hymns of the early Church, as well as spiritual poems taken from his writings.
For his part, Segundo Tejado, president of the Kiko Argüello Artistic Work Foundation, highlighted that sacred art “had moved from the sacred place to the museumto the exhibition hall, to the collectors’ salons, thus nullifying its cultic and liturgical value.
However, «Kiko returns the work of art to the liturgy; within a living community, an assembly that celebrates the mysteries of salvation. What’s more, “he removes art from the context of ‘business'” because “he does not charge for his works,” but rather “look for art for the poorfor the liturgy” causing “art to fulfill its true and elevated mission: to take the heart of man to the heavenly Jerusalem, to experience the love that God has shown us in Christ.”
But for Argüello, as he recognized when presenting the medal, the most important thing in all his artistic work has been «open a Path of Christian Initiation throughout the Church, which is helping so many families and so many young people” and continues to be one of the most vigorous and enthusiastic ecclesiastical realities of the Church.
Throughout his career he has received the support of different Popes since Paul VI, also from Francis. And at the same time has also suffered misunderstandingspersecution and criticism for his art despite the fact that great experts such as the Russian specialist Irina Yazykova praised his pictorial works, or his architecture aroused the interest of prominent architects.
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