Past Exhibitions
Browse the chronological list of past exhibitions at the 91女神 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.
The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture
September 16, 2007 to December 09, 2007
A uniquely modern art form, film and its associated motion picture industry have taken Judeo-Christian scripture as subject matter from the very beginning of the medium and have continued that treatment to the present day. The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture examines how the Bible has been visualized on film by bringing together 53 vintage movie posters that survey films from 1898 to the present鈥攆ilms classic and obscure, domestic and international, grandiose and camp鈥攁long with a selection of ancillary promotional and commemorative materials.
The posters (which range from small window cards to 9-foot mural-like posters) serve as aesthetic objects in their own right, and as indicators of changing trends in the film industry鈥檚 approach to the Bible. Designed to inspire the imagination and entice viewers to make a cinematic pilgrimage, the posters allow us to trace developments in the graphic arts as well as in advertising and marketing. Many of the posters have topical imagery that links them to a particular time and place, while others achieve a timeless quality; a number deserve to be considered as bona fide works of art. The posters, like the films they promote, can reveal much about the social milieus in which they functioned. The posters also hint at the various stances filmmakers have taken toward their biblical material: reverent or irreverent, ironic or dogmatic, understated or epic.
The Celluloid Bible draws on the extensive collection of film posters of scholar Rev. Michael Morris, O.P. Morris received his Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986 and for twenty years has been a Professor of Religion and the Arts at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. A special interest in film has led him to build a world-class collection of movie posters and allied material for films that charts the intersection between religion and the cinema. Morris writes for both scholarly and popular publications. His biography of the wife of the actor Rudolph Valentino (Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova, Abbeville Press, 1991) was named by The New York Times as one of the Notable Books of the Year. MOCRA is only the second venue to publicly display the Morris collection.
above:
Installation view of The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture at MOCRA, 2007. Photo by Jeffrey Vaughn.
Related programming
Michael Morris, O.P.: 鈥淢oving Pictures: The Bible and Beyond鈥
Celluloid Bible Classics: The Ten Commandments
Celluloid Bible Classics: Ben-Hur
Watch Michael Morris, O.P.: Moving Pictures - The Bible and Beyond
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Exhibition |
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Bernard Maisner: The Hourglass and the Spiral |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Erika Diettes: Sudarios |
Regina DeLuise: Vast Bhutan 鈥 Images from the Phenomenal World |
Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part Two, The Second Decade |
Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi |
Jordan Eagles: BLOOD / SPIRIT |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part One, The First Decade |
Archie Granot: The Papercut Haggadah |
A Tribute to Frederick J. Brown |
Patrick Graham: Thirty Years 鈥 The Silence Becomes the Painting |
Adrian Kellard: The Learned Art of Compassion |
Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art |
James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Good Friday |
Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears |
Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Pursuit of the Spirit |
Oskar Fischinger: Movement and Spirit |
The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture |
Arshile Gorky: The Early Years 鈥 Drawings and Paintings, 1927鈥1937 |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds |
Junko Chodos: The Breath of Consciousness |
DoDo Jin Ming: Land and Sea |
Rito, Espejo y Ojo / Ritual, Mirror and Eye: Photography by Luis Gonz谩lez-Palma, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Pablo Soria |
Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture: Richard Meier and Steven Holl |
Daniel Ramirez: Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus, an Homage to Oliver Messiaen |
Avoda: Objects of the Spirit 鈥 Ceremonial Art by Tobi Kahn |
Tony Hooker: The Greater Good 鈥 An Artist's Contemporary View of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds, an encore presentation |
Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds: A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration |
Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana |
Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985鈥1995 |
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium |
Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses |
MOCRA: The First Five Years |
Steven Heilmer: Pietre Sante | Holy Stones |
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Manfred Stumpf: Enter Jerusalem |
Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece |
Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter |
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Keith Haring: Altarpiece 鈥 The Life of Christ |
Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief 鈥 paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980鈥1994 |
Eleanor Dickinson: A Retrospective |
Post-Minimalism and the Spiritual: Four Chicago Artists |
Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part One |
Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater |
Transformations: Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
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Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two 鈥 Three Major Installations |
Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition |
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Gary Logan: Elements |
Gratitude |
Surface to Source |
Quiet Isn't Always Peace |
Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings |
Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections |
Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest |
Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE |
This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection |
Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos |
Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual |
Selections from the MOCRA Collection |