Past Exhibitions
Browse the chronological list of past exhibitions at the 老司机福利网 Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCRA), or search for a specific exhibition. Click 鈥淰iew鈥 for more information about an exhibition. If you need further information about an exhibition, please contact us.
Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace
February 3, 2008 to May 18, 2008
Chinese artist Miao Xiaochun asked himself an interesting question: "How would Michelangelo鈥檚 The Last Judgment appear from behind?" To explore this premise, Miao Xiaochun rendered a 3-D digital model of his own body. Then he mapped this model onto all 400-plus of the figures in Michelangelo鈥檚 Sistine Chapel painting, creating a virtual space according to the composition of the painting. From this virtual space he produced several large-scale digital C-print images of the scene from various vantage points, as well as a video in which the viewer "flies through" the painting. The artist describes it as "a visual and intellectual recreation of a different order鈥攁 two-dimensional representation is translated into a three-dimensional representation, a standard religious theme becomes the subject of personal speculation, a conclusion is turned into a question, a still canvas is made into active images, and an ancient work is taken as the site of a contemporary discourse."
Curator and art historian Wu Hung describes The Last Judgment in Cyberspace as a re-representation of an existing work of art. Contemporary digital and video technology allows contemporary artists to reflect upon and respond to earlier art forms, transforming paintings and sculptures into animated images with enhanced visual immediacy. Miao Xiaochun鈥檚 approach enables the viewer to enter Michelangelo鈥檚 painting as a participant, and allows one to adopt otherwise impossible viewing angles. This allows for imaginative play: what is the experience of judgment from the point of view of one of the blessed, or one of the damned, or one of the heavenly cohort?
Furthermore, new critical perspectives are introduced, both of Michelangelo鈥檚 painting, and of the questions about ultimate meaning it raises. Miao Xiaochun becomes all of the characters鈥攖he divine, the demonic, the saved, and the damned. The repeated use of the same model "automatically abandons the distinctions between high and low, left and right, good and evil, honorable and humble, east and west, ancient and modern," according to the artist. Miao Xiaochun leaves the figures in his "re-representation" in a relatively rough state, with an almost marble-like appearance. The C-prints and the video blend qualities of cutting-edge technology with sublime and apocalyptic imagery.
The Last Judgment in Cyberspace has been exhibited in Beijing, Berlin, and Chicago. MOCRA is only the second American venue for this pioneering work. MOCRA is grateful to the Walsh Gallery, Chicago, for its assistance in bringing this exhibition to St. Louis.
Artist Miao Xiaochun was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China in 1964. He has been featured in solo and group exhibitions worldwide, including shows in China, Korea, Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Presently he teaches in the Photography and Digital Media Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
Curator Wu Hung is the Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art History at the University of Chicago, and Consulting Curator at the Smart Museum. His research interests include both traditional and contemporary fields and he has published several books in addition to numerous catalogue essays. He has curated major exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art.
What do the figures in Michelangelo鈥檚 Last Judgment ... see at this fatal moment? To Miao Xiaochun, to answer these questions means to enter the painting and to assume the varied gazes of the painted figures. | Wu Hung
above:
Installation view of Mia Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace at MOCRA, 2008. Photo by Jeffrey Vaughn.
Related programming
Wu Hung: What is Contemporary Chinese Art?
Exhibition |
---|
Bernard Maisner: The Hourglass and the Spiral |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Erika Diettes: Sudarios |
Regina DeLuise: Vast Bhutan 鈥 Images from the Phenomenal World |
Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part Two, The Second Decade |
Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi |
Jordan Eagles: BLOOD / SPIRIT |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part One, The First Decade |
Archie Granot: The Papercut Haggadah |
A Tribute to Frederick J. Brown |
Patrick Graham: Thirty Years 鈥 The Silence Becomes the Painting |
Adrian Kellard: The Learned Art of Compassion |
Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art |
James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Good Friday |
Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears |
Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Pursuit of the Spirit |
Oskar Fischinger: Movement and Spirit |
The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture |
Arshile Gorky: The Early Years 鈥 Drawings and Paintings, 1927鈥1937 |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds |
Junko Chodos: The Breath of Consciousness |
DoDo Jin Ming: Land and Sea |
Rito, Espejo y Ojo / Ritual, Mirror and Eye: Photography by Luis Gonz谩lez-Palma, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Pablo Soria |
Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture: Richard Meier and Steven Holl |
Daniel Ramirez: Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus, an Homage to Oliver Messiaen |
Avoda: Objects of the Spirit 鈥 Ceremonial Art by Tobi Kahn |
Tony Hooker: The Greater Good 鈥 An Artist's Contemporary View of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds, an encore presentation |
Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds: A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration |
Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana |
Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985鈥1995 |
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium |
Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses |
MOCRA: The First Five Years |
Steven Heilmer: Pietre Sante | Holy Stones |
Utopia Body Paint Collection and Australian Aboriginal Art from St. Louis Collections |
Manfred Stumpf: Enter Jerusalem |
Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece |
Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter |
Consecrations Revisited |
Keith Haring: Altarpiece 鈥 The Life of Christ |
Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief 鈥 paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980鈥1994 |
Eleanor Dickinson: A Retrospective |
Post-Minimalism and the Spiritual: Four Chicago Artists |
Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part One |
Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater |
Transformations: Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Visible Conservation |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two 鈥 Three Major Installations |
Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition |
MOCRA: 25 |
Gary Logan: Elements |
Gratitude |
Surface to Source |
Quiet Isn't Always Peace |
Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings |
Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections |
Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest |
Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE |
This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection |
Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos |
Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual |
Selections from the MOCRA Collection |