June 4, 2023, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Sistine Chapel exhibition gives a view like no other

By Mike Haynes

                I was 19 when I walked with a travel group into the Sistine Chapel, and I remember the shoulder-to-shoulder tourists almost as much as I remember the wondrous ceiling and walls, painted by Michelangelo and a few other Renaissance artists.

The chapel is almost the size of a typical small-town gym. Trying to appreciate what I was seeing during a three-week, whirlwind tour of Europe with a flock of Texas Panhandle high school and college students and our teacher sponsors, I exited the famous site at the Vatican in Rome after half an hour with one more check mark on my mental “been there” list.

                I certainly am grateful that I stood in that historic room, but now I have a chance to see Michelangelo’s work without having to risk a crick in my neck, without binoculars to view artistic details and with fascinating descriptions in my ear.

                As you read this column, “Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition” is being set up at Arts in the Sunset at 3701 Plains Blvd. in Amarillo. It will be open to the public for 38 days between this June 9 and July 23. 

                The celebrated ceiling art that Michelangelo painted from 1508 to 1512 and his dramatic “Last Judgment,” which he created from 1536 to 1541 on the chapel’s tall west wall, feature so many scenes and human figures that it’s no easy task to understand what you’re seeing.

                Books and websites are available that allow you to view the individual paintings and read about them. But what if you could stand just a few feet from those outstretched fingers of God and man that the great artist crafted to show “The Creation of Adam” – in the actual size that they exist on that 66-foot-high ceiling?

                You can with a ticket to the exhibit that will visit Amarillo, which features digitally reproduced images printed on canvas panels. A ticket includes an audio guide app for your smartphone.

                “Download the app, choose which language you want, type in the number of the panel, and there’s a narration that tells you exactly what you’re looking at,” said Beth Duke, executive director of Center City, which helped bring the Sistine Chapel to town.

                Center City oversees the Amarillo Cultural District, which includes downtown but also other areas, including Arts in the Sunset.

                Duke said Dean Frigo, a former assistant city manager, saw the exhibit in Albuquerque. Frigo returned and told Father Tony Neusch at St. Mary’s Cathedral about it, then called Duke and said, “We need to bring this to Amarillo.” Frigo and Father Tony both helped make that happen although the exhibit usually appears in larger cities.

                Duke, who has been to the Sistine Chapel in Rome twice, and her husband, Ralph Duke, checked out the exhibit in Oklahoma City to confirm that it’s up to Center City standards. “I wanted to be sure it was something I’d be proud to put our name on,” she said.

                “I believe the audiences are going to be faith-based, people who love art, people who love history and people who travel,” Duke said. “A lot of people have been to the Sistine Chapel; a lot of people have it on their bucket list; but this is a way to see it up close and personal, at your own pace, with a narrative.

                “Even if you are in the Sistine Chapel, you don’t see it like this.”

                Standard admission to the Amarillo exhibit, which includes an audio guide, costs $22.50 (much less than flying to Italy to see the original). Senior, child and group discounts are available as well as a souvenir package that includes a keepsake guidebook. Duke said she hopes people in Amarillo and the area will take advantage of the group rate. “I’m thinking Sunday school groups, book clubs, travel study groups,” she said.

                “Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel” will be open from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sundays with last entry 1½ hours before closing. It will be closed on July 4.

                Tickets can be booked for specific times at https://chapelsistine.com/exhibits/amarillo.

                Duke said she estimates that most people will spend an hour to 90 minutes perusing the exhibit.

“When I saw it, one thing that stood out to me was realizing how many individual faces were in those huge panels. Each one is a portrait. In one panel is an unflattering depiction of the pope at that time. I feel sure Michelangelo had some fun with that.

“I found it very moving. I’m hopeful that people will take advantage of this. I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, I wish I’d known it was here.’

In case you wonder, the chapel’s name stems from Pope Sixtus IV, who had an older chapel restored between 1477 and 1480, resulting in the current architecture. Later popes commissioned Michelangelo to create the frescoes – paintings on wet plaster – on the ceiling and west wall along with paintings on the side walls by Botticelli and other artists.

                 The exhibit includes only Michelangelo’s contributions – certainly 34 images by the genius are enough – and when I go, I’ll see them in much more detail than I did when I was a teenager. I’ll appreciate them more than I did then, too – for their art and historical value as well as their spiritual messages.

                Rumor has it that the artist included at least one self-portrait in his Sistine Chapel frescoes. I’ll be looking for him, and I hope you will, too.