Museum of Biblical Art
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The Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) is the first museum in the United States dedicated to the exploration of the Bible's legacy in Jewish and Christian art. Originally the Gallery at the American Bible Society, the museum opened to the public as an independent entity on May 12, 2005 in a renovated space at 61st Street and Broadway in New York City.
The museum aims to become a nationally recognized centre of expertise on art and the Bible while maintaining a secular distance from its subject. Although it grew out of the American Bible Society, it is not a religious institution and takes no stand on religion itself. Rather, MOBIA hopes to open dialogue on a subject it considers under-explored, the influence of religion on art, while providing educational programs to visitors of every age and understanding.
MOBIA's director is Dr. Ena Heller. The museum is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday-Sunday from 10:00am - 6:00pm, and on Thursday from 10:00am - 8:00pm. The museum is closed on Mondays. Admission is free.
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[edit] Building
The Museum of Biblical Art is located at the corner of Broadway and 61st street, near Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The main 2,500 square foot exhibition space was created after an extensive renovation, and the museum also includes an 1,100 square foot education center for lectures, concerts, and children's activities. Principal architects Randall Goya and Sara Lopergolo, of G&L Architects of New York, also headed the Selldorf Architects design team on New York's Neue Galerie.
[edit] Exhibitions
The Museum of Biblical Art presents four exhibitions per year which highlight the changing relationship of faith, whether express, implied, or absent, to art.
MOBIA first welcomed visitors with the exhibition "Coming Home!: Self-taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South," featuring ninety-five works by seventy-three artists. The exhibit explored the way the Bible, in the context of evangelical Christianity, has influenced the subject matter, meaning and function of art made by Southern self-taught artists.
Later exhibitions included "The Next Generation: Contemporary Expressions of Faith," which dealt with contemporary religious art and artists in partnership with CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts), and "Let There Be Light: Oil Lamps from the Holy Land," exploring the uses of clay oil lamps through history, on loan from the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem.
Currently on exhibit, "This Anguished World of Shadows: Georges Rouault's Miserere et Guerre" presents fifty-eight black and white engravings created by the artist in response to his own Catholic faith, the crucifixion of Christ, and the human cruelty he witnessed during World War I. The exhibit is on loan from the collection of Robert and Sandra Bowden.
In June, MOBIA presents "The Word on the Street: The Photographs of Larry Racioppo." Racioppo's work focuses on religious imagery in the boroughs of New York City, including personal shrines, graffiti art, and devotional imagery inked on to the human body.
Other upcoming exhibitions include "Gilded Legacies: The Saint John's Bible in Context," "Minding Traditions?: Twentieth Century Artists and the Judeo-Christian Legacy," and "Ethiopian Art from the Walters Art Museum."
[edit] See also
List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
[edit] External links
