Past Exhibitions

Browse the chronological list of past exhibitions at the 麻豆传媒 Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCRA), or search for a specific exhibition. Click 鈥淰iew鈥� for more information about an exhibition. If you need further information about an exhibition, please contact us.

Name

Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium

Dates

November 14, 1998 to June 28, 1999

Description

The late art historian George Kubler wrote in The Shape of Time, "[Works of art] are like gateways, where the visitor can enter the space of the painter, or the time of the poet, to experience whatever rich domain the artist has fashioned. But the visitor must come prepared: if he brings a vacant mind or a deficient sensibility, he will see nothing."

Nearly twenty-five years ago at the beginning of his formal art career, Bernard Maisner entered the gateway of manuscript illumination, immersing himself in the study of texts from Medieval Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. He brought with him a perceptive intellect and an imagination that allowed him to mine the riches of these works, absorb their beauty and mystery, and learn the techniques of illumination.

Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium is the first comprehensive exhibition of Maisner鈥檚 art, containing over 85 works spanning the years 1975 to 1998. The exhibition reflects Maisner鈥檚 ongoing love of books and pages that began in the mid-1970s and continues to the present; his smaller works of the early to mid-1980s; his multi-paneled works of the late 1980s; the large paintings of the early 1990s; and the more expressive, loose, brush work paintings of the mid-to-late 1990s.

Eminent art historian Dore Ashton perceptively notes that Maisner does not seek to "embalm time." His work is rooted in the tradition of illumination that is well over a millennium old; but it is also modern in its concept, its use of materials (egg tempera and gold leaf sometimes juxtaposed with cigarette ash and dirt), its designs and its themes. He has been attracted to passionate writers, be they modern literary figures, musicians, composers, or ancient philosophers.

Maisner is primarily interested in non-narrative texts, which he fully integrates into the design and composition of the overall works. Words flow through hourglasses, rise like steam from a cauldron, or fly out in centrifugal spirals. Often in his microcosmic worlds, Maisner deals with ultimate concerns. As Maisner himself says, his subjects are the "questions of infinity, endlessness, beginnings, endings, emotion, intellect. Unity, opposites and paradoxes fascinate me. Creation, love, suffering, passion, and death . . ." But in pursuit of these themes, Maisner does not desire definite answers鈥攊t is sufficient for him to stand in wonder at the mystery of life.

George Kubler stated that "when a specific temperament interlocks with a favorable position, the fortunate individual can extract from the situation a wealth of previously unimagined consequences." This is the achievement of Bernard Maisner. He has seen the richness, mystery, and power of illumination with a modern eye, has understood it anew, and has presented the viewer with a "wealth of previously unimagined consequences."

After its initial presentation at MOCRA, Entrance to the Scriptorium travels to the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA; the Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX; and the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.

The exhibition catalogue features 70 color reproductions, a catalogue essay by art historian Dore Ashton, and an introduction and interview with the artist by exhibition curator Terrence Dempsey, S.J.

Bernard Maisner is not only one of the finest illuminators of manuscripts at work today, but an accomplished painter as well. His paintings andilluminations combine text, design and materials in a way unlike any other contemporary work. What results are stunning works of art that are ravishing in their beauty and intriguing in their mystery. Maisner is represented in some of this country鈥檚 most prestigious private and public collections. Born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1954, Maisner first became familiar with illuminated manuscripts during his college studies at The Cooper Union in New York.

Since that time he has been a guest lecturer, teacher and researcher at such prominent institutions as the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Cloisters Museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Maisner鈥檚 search for meaning in his art takes him in the direction of the infinite, of opposites, of reverence of Nature, and of things mystical and unanswerable. This mid-career retrospective exhibition is originating in St. Louis and will travel to six national venues.

[Bernard Maisner] set out to grasp the passage of time in living metaphors. | Dore Ashton

above:
Installation view of Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium at MOCRA, 1998鈥�1999. Photo by Jeffrey Vaughn.

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Media

Exhibition
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Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre March 8, 2011 to July 31, 2011 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the 脡cole des Beaux-...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre March 2, 2003 to May 11, 2003 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the 脡cole des Beaux-...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre January 18, 2000 to April 2, 2000 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the 脡cole des Beaux-...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre March 21, 1994 to April 26, 1994 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the 脡cole des Beaux-...
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Highlights from the MOCRA Collection May 30, 2015 to August 2, 2015 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Junko Chodos, Doug DePice, Luis Gonz谩lez Palma, DoDo Jin Ming, Dean Kessman, Frank LaPena, Daniel Ramirez, and Susan S...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross April 21, 2018 to July 28, 2018 Seven months of conservation work culminate in the first public showing at MOCRA of Cruz to Bishop Oscar Romero, Martyr of El Salvador, a major mixed media sculpture by Michael Tracy (b. 1943), who first achieved international recognition in the 1980s, exhibiting in the 1982 Venice Biennal...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection March 28, 2006 to July 30, 2006 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Seyed Alavi, Luis Gonz谩lez Palma, Steven Heilmer, Anne Minich, Shahzia Sikander, Kazuaki Tanahashi, and other artists. above: Sr. Helen David Brancato, Crucif...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection June 20, 2004 to August 29, 2004 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Peter Ambrose, Gryphon Blackswan, Daniel Goldstein, Steven Luecking, Gary Passanise, Susan Schwalb, Michael Tracy, and other artists. above: Anne Minich, Annie...
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Highlights from the MOCRA Collection January 7, 2003 to February 23, 2003 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Craig Antrim, Michael David, Sue Eisler, Adrian Kellard, Dean Kessmann, Anne Minich, Daniel Ramirez, and other artists. above: James Rosen, Sta. Cecilia, 1...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection May 6, 2001 to November 8, 2001 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems and some works on loan. Featuring works by Peter Ambrose, Lori Bert, Sr. Helen David Brancato, Daniel Goldstein, Carolyn Jones, Stuart Klipper, Horatio Hung-Yan Law, Thomas Skomski, and other arti...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection July 29, 1999 to December 22, 1999 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Michael David, Eleanor Dickinson, Steven Heilmer, Charlotte Lichtblau, J. W. Mahoney, Jeffrey Miller, and other artists. above: Michael David, Missing in Actio...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection January 15, 1998 to February 22, 1998 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Gryphon Blackswan, Heidy Sumei Chuang, Greg Edmondson, Jeffrey Miller, Carl Tandatnick, and other artists. above: Gryphon Blackswan, Chasuble for Mass in the T...
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two 鈥� Three Major Installations April 18, 1993 to August 29, 1993 MOCRA's two-part inaugural exhibition features more than 100 works from an wide-ranging roster of artists working in styles ranging from traditional Western figuration to minimalist and geometric abstraction. The artists, generally in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, tend to be disillusioned with the cel...
Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition May 24, 2018 to November 12, 2018 MOCRA, in collaboration with the Special Collections division of the 麻豆传媒 Libraries, presents an exhibition in the Lambert Gallery at St. Louis Lambert International Airport as part of the ...
MOCRA: 25 September 16, 2018 to March 3, 2019 The Museum of Contemporary Religious Art began with an audacious assertion: many of today鈥檚 visual artists engage with the religious and spiritual dimensions in their work鈥攅ven if they sometimes go about it in ways quite different from prior generations. Despite skepticism from mem...
Gary Logan: Elements March 19, 2019 to June 30, 2019 Trinidadian-American artist Gary Logan explores humanity鈥檚 relationship with the Earth and its elements through dramatic lighting, atmospheric ambiguity, vivid colors, and rich textures. He finds visual and conceptual inspiration in two rich sources that utilize landscape as a means of explorin...
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Surface to Source February 05, 2020 to November 22, 2020 For his first show curated as Director of MOCRA, David Brinker delves into the MOCRA collection, bringing out works that haven鈥檛 been shown in a number of years and juxtaposing them with perennial favorites. The works from the collection are joined by several works on loan. Meanwhile, the remov...
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