The Sistine Chapel Exhibition for the first time ever stops in New York City. 

The Renaissance era has always been a progressive time in history and this October I got lucky where one of the most known artists of the time, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni had an exhibition right here in Soho in honor of his legendary work on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. 

My favorite part about a museum is how the art brings people together, and how it divides them at the same time. When I first heard about the exhibition it drew my curiosity out to go check it out. I was urged by the unique presentations of the art and to be part of a new experience.

It was this exhibition’s first time in New York as it has stopped in major cities like Barcelona, Paris, Atlanta, Vienna, Phoenix, Shanghai, and many other cities with expectations of expanding to more areas around the globe. 

This exhibition in Soho, NY opened just at the end of September and is still currently accepting visitors up until January 8th, 2022. It has been very successful in gaining public attention. More than 1,100 people attended on its opening day Sept. 30, said art handler Niko Plesons. Plesons also mentioned that he especially enjoyed seeing “how the people take the time to read and to listen to the historical context”. 

The gigantic masterpieces were really a bold statement that fascinated us all. Our love for the Italian art world is driven by the articulated story behind these paintings that brought out a voice outside of that ceiling in the Vatican City and outside of that traditional museum experience. The simplicity of the museum’s execution of presenting these replications in enlarged canvases allowed the audience to view an abundant amount of new detail in person, fine details you wouldn’t even be able to notice from the ceiling itself unless you are viewing it on a screen or a projection and that had to be the highlight of the museums’ experience in entirety. 

From the moment I walked into the exhibition, I was stuck. I couldn’t wait to get my ticket scanned in as I already noticed some of the art behind the check-in desk. The Drunkenness of Noah was the first gigantic masterpiece that caught the corner of my eye. I was stuck staring at the artwork for about a good 10 minutes when I finally realized there was so much more to see!

For just about $19.20 you were able to purchase a ticket whereas children, students, military, seniors, and veterans were a few dollars cheaper and they offered different group prices. With an additional purchase of your choice, you’re offered to walk around with a digital scanner that plays back an audio description of the piece you had just scanned. It has fascinated me this new trend of money-making where art movements are taken into an immersive experience. Take the Van Gogh or The Bansky exhibition here in New York for example and Just in Italy an immersive Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibition has opened up. It gets people involved in such a new way, and it does pull the attention from around the area to the unique viewing experience of these artworks. It makes it easy, fun, entertaining and even relaxing for personal entertainment.

This new start of art projection such as Michelangelo’s exhibition is a great example of history still progressing in the future. These exhibitions have left the room with a loss of words, and the original presentation that draws the audience into engaging with the artwork is the best part I heard whispers about the dimensions of these enormous masterpieces and the religious aspects of the artwork. 

Designed by Baccio Pontellifor for Pope Sixtus IV henceforth the chapel was named after him, they began constructing in 1473 and finished in 1481. Pope Julius II then later commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling in 1508 and decided the themes to his frescoes to be stories from the Old Testament after rejecting Pope Julius’s Idea. Four years later it was completed and five years later after that, The Last Judgment was completed. 

I was familiar with most of the stories Michelangelo told in his ceiling especially because I was familiar with Roman Christianity.

Ultimately the uniqueness of the exhibition brought many different faces and they all left with many different reactions. That is truly what makes the art in an exhibition become more valued over time. The continuation of interaction and appreciation of the public takes in the historical connection we all have to the Italian art culture, and the art being introduced to a new way of interaction and viewing.