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Joanna Wane previews an Auckland exhibition of Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel frescoes that’s turned the world upside down
MOVING HEAVEN AND EARTH
M
onty Python aced it when they depicted Michelangelo copping an earful from the Pope for painting an early version of The Last Supper with 28 disciples and three Christs — on the grounds of artistic licence. When the real Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to decorate his private chapel at the Vatican in the early 16th century, he requested the 12 Apostles. By the time “Il Divino” finally descended for the final time after four years on the scaffolding, every inch of plaster on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was covered not only with the entire Genesis creation story but hundreds of other biblical and mythological figures. Driven by what one art historian describes as a desire to “glorify man as a creature of nobility, beauty and power”, he later created another masterpiece, The Last Judgment, to cover the altar wall. The number of nudes caused such a scandal
‘Our idea was to do something different and put the ceiling on the floor, so you can look down and see it from above, but there was a real discussion because up there is heaven and down there is hell!’
— Michael Schaumer
that, after Michelangelo’s death, one of his students was brought in to restore a sense of decency by painting on some clothes. “He was a rebel of his time,” says Michael Schaumer, of the master artist, sculptor, poet and architect whose famous Sistine Chapel frescoes feature in a suitably controversial exhibition, Michelangelo — A Different View. Schaumer is production manager of the international exhibition, which opens at Auckland’s Aotea Centre next week. And as it turns out, he’s a bit of a rebel himself. In the late 70s, the Berliner founded cult New Wave band P1/E and fell into a career in event management, booking gigs for the likes of US punk rockers the Dead Kennedys. When Canvas caught up with him via Zoom, Schaumer was in Sudan preparing for a huge culture festival being held on the banks of the Nile. There are actually two rival Sistine Chapel
Right, clockwise: The Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. A Different View exhibition allows visitors to look down rather than up. The David and Goliath fresco.
