October 8, 2014–March 15, 2015
Exhibition Location: Lila Acheson Wallace Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art Design and Architecture
, Gallery 909
For the first time in nearly 30 years, Marisol’s monumental sculptural assemblage,
Self-Portrait Looking at The Last Supper, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning October 10, 2014. Marisol (Maria Sol Escobar, b. 1930) translated the dimensions and illusionistic perspective of Leonardo da Vinci’s
The Last Supper (ca. 1495-1498) into three-dimensional form to create the 30-foot-long installation.
Self-Portrait Looking at The Last Supper at the Met will be on view concurrently and in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio’s exhibition
MARISOL: Sculptures and Works on Paper, on view October 10, 2014–January 10, 2015.
“The Met is thrilled to collaborate with El Museo del Barrio in supporting their comprehensive view of the retrospective of this important living artist,” said Sheena Wagstaff, the Metropolitan Museum’s Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art. “More often identified as an artist contemporary with Warhol, Marisol’s immersion in the Pop era took a much more ecumenical—and singular—approach to popular culture than her peers. Hence her radical response to Leonardo’s great masterpiece, dismantling and restaging the scene in astonishingly blocky cubistic forms with curious casts of hands and feet—in which the artist takes a self-conscious stance to the idea of community at its most potent moment, spiked with its dark underside of betrayal. ”
The installation is made possible by The Modern Circle, Tiqui Atencio and Ago Demirdjian.
Self-Portrait Looking at The Last Supper is one of Marisol’s most ambitious sculptural works. Inspired by Leonardo’s monumental fresco, Marisol faithfully rendering the painting’s composition into three dimensions. The biblical scene depicts Christ and his Apostles at the Passover meal, with each disciple reacting to the announcement by Jesus that one of them would betray him.
The work is primarily carved from wood, with a rough, sketchy technique that includes painted and drawn elements. Marisol is particularly skillful at joining seemingly incompatible components. In fact, the seated figures are neither fully rounded nor consistently flat, oscillating between two and three dimensions. The artist chiseled the central figure of Christ from a block of salvaged New York City brownstone. Christ’s physical solidity and ashen, serene appearance contrast with the blackened, twisted figure of Judas to provide the composition’s emotional tension. In Marisol’s sculptural version of the Last Supper, a novel figure is added opposite the tableau. It portrays the artist contemplating the scene and with a hieratic presence that shares visual affinities with the stocky, solemn figures of pre-Columbian sculpture.
Leonardo’s mural—painted on the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan between 1495 and 1498—remains one of the most iconic paintings in the history of art. It has inspired many artists, including Andy Warhol, Marisol’s contemporary. Like Warhol, popular subjects from the world of politicians and public celebrities have also influenced Marisol’s work and this sculptural group demonstrates her interest in reinterpreting significant cultural figures and events. However, for Marisol looking—as the title emphasizes—could mean bringing The Last Supper down level with the viewer, physically—and metaphorically—positioning him/her in the same space as Christ and the Apostles.
Born Maria Sol Escobar in Paris to Venezuelan parents, Marisol grew up between Europe, Venezuela and US before settling in New York in 1950. Despite her initial training as a painter—she studied under Hans Hofmann in New York—she ultimately chose sculpture as her main medium. Wood carvings that blend elements of Pop, Expressionism and Folk art stand as her most recognizable works, which continue to singularize her career as an artist with a unique vision.
The installation of Marisol’s Self-Portrait Looking at The Last Supper was organized by Iria Candela, the Estrellita B. Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum.
The exhibition will be featured on the Museum’s website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter via the hashtag #MetMarisol.
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October 9, 2014
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