Review: "Thumbs Twisted" for Bible Exhibit at Oklahoma City Museum of Art

AOA NEWS
By Tahlib



OKLAHOMA - The Passages exhibition at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, an extraordinary collection of Holy Bibles, related letters and Dead Sea scroll fragments would be breathtaking if the producers had given it an equally breathtaking installation. This collection of some 300 works reminds us of the praiseworthy roots and reach of the Bible over generations and continents but feels as if the local troupe of pretenders from the Renaissance Festival picked up the collection and put it on display at the Circus. Simply put, the collection deserves better.

Instead of creating a fitting and dignified environment similar to those created for the "Treasurers of Heaven" at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the "Dead Sea Scrolls" at the Minnesota Science Museum, this installation has a carnival feel with an over-the-top Evangelical twist, I assume to extend its reach in this Bible Belt state. While the collection, as noted above is extraordinary, and to its credit also does some impressive things with new technologies to extend the journey, those triumphs however are greatly diminished by the amateurish Medieval scenery, ridiculously costumed docents with strange accents, the dusty-looking animatronic bible heroes (borrowed, I assume from the state fair), and a cartoon lion figure who pops up here-and-there including shouting out from down inside a well, "I've just been Lyon around..."

To be fair to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the installations of artworks on the other floors are wonderfully displayed (on separate floors from Passages). This includes another temporary exhibit "1934: A New Deal for Artists" on floor 1, and more permanent displays featuring photographer Amy Blakemore's " Plasters Marys" and Baroque painter Jacob Jordaen's "The Raising of the Cross" both on floor 2. This leads me to a hopeful conclusion that Passages on floor 3 is not a reflection on the expertise of the museum staff. Instead, it appears designed by a marketing department for a hobby store planning a trade show display at a religious convention, but who bought a museum instead. At least, I hope that is the case. Was it worth the trip to Oklahoma City? Yes, even with the carnival-like flaws. My disappointment is that the collection deserves much better, and my prediction is it will get better (much better) when it moves on to Rome. 'Passages’ is in Oklahoma City until Oct 16.