Adam Lowe in conversation with Sol Costales and Alex Ellis

Beauty is often considered a universal value, an objective quality that transcends time and space. However, the criteria by which we judge whether something is beautiful are determined by cultural conventions, historical circumstances and systems of power. What one culture venerates as beautiful, another may overlook.

Adam Lowe, internationally renowned for his pioneering work in the field of heritage conservation and the development of rematerialisation, explores beauty as a cultural condition that determines how we see, value, preserve and transmit material culture.

For centuries, The Wedding at Cana, by Paolo Veronese, was considered one of the Louvre's finest paintings. Today, it is largely overshadowed by the Mona Lisa by Leonardo, which shares the room with it, whose iconic status is due as much to changing cultural narratives, reproduction, the media and tourism as to any intrinsic quality of the painting itself. Caravaggio, too, fell into obscurity until his rediscovery in the 20th century.

Through practical case studies — from the rematerialisation of The Wedding at Cana and its return to its original location on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, to the recent rediscovery of Ecce Homo by Caravaggio in Spain — Lowe examines how the concept of beauty is constructed, transformed and transmitted cultural value over time.

A challenge to discuss alongside the British Ambassador to Spain, Alex Ellis, moderated by Sol Costales, Projects Director at Factum Arte.

Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish