Monday, May 9, 2022

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition

     Boy, was I misled. Or did I mislead myself?  A few weeks ago, I saw a notice of a Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Exhibit opening nearby. I could swear I saw the words "immersive experience" somewhere. I snapped up the tickets, enthralled by the two Van Gogh immersive experiences that we had recently seen. Maybe I just saw the words "immersive experience" in my own head.  In any case, we were in for a slight disappointment when we arrived.

    There were no projectors, no moving images, no musical scores. There was just a brief - but well done video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NadMZ-P93Ms ) from an interesting art education YouTube series and then blown-up reproduction canvases of many of the panels. 











    The pictures had nice explanations attached, and there was a good audio guide that paired with the exhibition well. The pictures were large and beautiful and powerful. The viewer had access to the works that he or she would never get anywhere else. I've been fortunate enough to have seen the Sistine Chapel in person; that experience was awesome and almost overwhelming, but it was also very crowded and had the guards loudly shushing the tourists when their whispers grew too loud. This was a good compromise. Although I believe it would be relatively easy  for skilled creative people to create a mindblowing immersive projected experience, this exhibit is worth seeing, whether or not you've seen the real thing.






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