Sistine Chapel Coming to a City Near You

Image credit: SEE Global Entertainment

A traveling exhibition, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition, is giving visitors the chance to encounter full-scale reproductions of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes up close. The exhibition offers an unhurried, quiet setting to take in the work like never before.

Heidi Thompson, founder of Global Art Reproduction, recently sat down with Martin Biallas of See Global Entertainment, the exhibition's producer, to talk about how a visit to Vatican City led him to develop the touring show, the technology used to produce it, and what he sees as the source of its appeal.

A New Way to See Michelangelo

Martin Biallas has spent 46 years in the business of immersive experiences — from Star Trek and Titanic to King Tut, Pokémon, and Hot Wheels. When he visited the Sistine Chapel in the early 2010s, he found the experience limited.

"They have about 6 million visitors a year," he explains. "You only have a limited time inside to see it. There are thousands of people around you, absolutely no photos, and a lot of noise. The frescoes were difficult to take in within that time."

As he left the chapel, Biallas had a thought that would shape the next decade of his career: What if I could get the licensing rights to reproduce the frescoes — in their original size — so people could see them up close, as if standing just ten feet beneath the ceiling?

By the summer of 2015, the first version of that experience opened at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal. Today, multiple touring units of the exhibition are operating simultaneously around the world.

The Technology Behind the Magic

Recreating Michelangelo's frescoes at their true scale isn't simply a matter of printing big pictures. Every decision — from the source imagery to the substrate — was made to honor the look and feel of the original work.

The Images

The exhibition's reproductions are based on a unique set of photographs created during the Vatican's landmark restoration of the Sistine Chapel between 1980 and 1999. Through an agreement with Japan's Nippon Television Network, which helped fund the conservation project, Japanese photographer Takashi Okamura received exclusive access to photograph the frescoes from the restoration scaffolding. Today, those high-resolution, post-restoration photographs are licensed through Bridgeman Images, one of the world's leading fine art licensing agencies. Biallas secured worldwide licensing rights to use the images for the exhibition. While pre-restoration photographs are widely available, he says they lack the clarity and color fidelity needed to produce reproductions of this quality.

The Substrate

Biallas was insistent from the beginning: no projections. "There have been so many projected shows," he says. Instead, the images are printed on a specially engineered textile called Decotex, sourced from Germany, which replicates the matte, absorbent quality of a true fresco.

"I feel like we almost peeled off the fresco off the ceiling," he says. Lighting built into the exhibition frames is directed down onto the prints from above, giving the work a natural, gallery-quality presentation.

For the exhibition's permanent home on the Las Vegas Strip at the Crystals at CityCenter, the team went one step further with a lightbox version, where illumination shines from behind the fabric rather than above it. The result is even more luminous, though the format is too complex to tour. "It's hard to tour with a lightbox version," Biallas says, "that's why we chose it for the permanent site in Vegas."

An Art Exhibition Built to Travel

One of the most remarkable things about the exhibition is its versatility. The team can set it up in three days and take it down in one. That logistical efficiency has allowed the show to appear in places no major touring exhibition typically goes.

In an ideal venue, the 33 ceiling frescoes are laid out in the same order they appear on the original ceiling, with the Last Judgment — 42 by 42 feet at full scale — displayed on the back wall. Not every venue can accommodate that, so the exhibition has adapted to armories, mansions, cathedrals, paper mills, and underground spaces beneath train tracks near London's Tower Bridge. Each venue becomes its own version of the experience.

Some highlights from the road according to Biallas:

• Historic Lambermont Estate in San Antonio, Texas: 35,000 visitors

• St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna: 85,000 visitors

• São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound: 280,000 visitors

• Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan: 64,000 visitors

• Tacoma Armory in Washington: Open for 12 days, 1,700 visitors per day

"We've been in over 100 cities worldwide," Biallas says. "Shanghai, Vienna, and New York, and I could go on and on." And he's quick to point out that the exhibition thrives in what he calls B and C cities — Providence, Dayton, Tacoma — not just the major cultural capitals. "It doesn't have to be the Chicagos and the San Franciscos."

What the Art Does on Its Own

For all the logistical precision and technical craft behind the exhibition, Biallas is clear about what actually moves people.

"Here, the art just speaks for itself. You don't need all the bells and whistles."

While the artwork remains the focus, the exhibition also includes several thoughtful additions: a small theater featuring documentary content produced by PBS, ambient sacred choral music, and a dedicated app where visitors can scan QR codes next to each fresco to learn its meaning, history, and some of the more colorful stories from Michelangelo's years on the scaffolding.

Does It Replace the Original?

Biallas is the first to say no — and the first to say it doesn't need to.

"Of course, if you ever have the chance to see the original, you have to go. That's without question." But for those who haven't been, or who have and want to go deeper, the exhibition offers something the Vatican cannot: time, proximity, and peace.

"A lot of people tell us that if they're planning to go, this is a great way to get introduced. And if they've been there, it really rounds off their experience. So it works either way."

A Legacy Built on Reproduction: The Complete Frida

The Sistine Chapel exhibition isn't Biallas's only venture into art reproduction. Roughly 15 years ago, he produced The Complete Frida, an exhibition built around the complete body of work of Frida Kahlo, and it remains one of the projects he's most proud of. "I found it fascinating at the time, and still do," he says.

According to Biallas, the exhibition brought together 123 works, originals and reproductions, under one roof for the first time. "I don't have to tell you how long the lines were," he recalls. It ran successfully for about three years before closing, in part because of licensing challenges with Kahlo's estate. Still, The Complete Frida demonstrated something Biallas has carried into every project since: when reproductions are made carefully and skillfully, they can give audiences access to a complete body of work that no longer exists in its original form.

The Art of Banksy: “Without Limits”

Another project in See Global Entertainment's portfolio was The Art of Banksy: “Without Limits.”  The exhibition brought together more than 150 of the street artist's works, including original pieces, prints on a range of materials, photography, sculpture, murals, full installations, and a mapping presentation. A video documentary was woven throughout, offering insight into Banksy's life and work.

The underlying approach is the same one that runs through all of Biallas's work: take art that's difficult for most people to see firsthand, whether it's inside Vatican City or scattered across walls and cities around the world, and bring it together into one accessible experience.

Bringing the Sistine Chapel to Your Community

Biallas notes that Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition has performed particularly well in mid-sized cities — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, it became the most successful guest exhibition ever hosted by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. As the exhibition continues to tour internationally, communities interested in hosting it can contact the show's team at Janet.Lane@seeglobalentertainment.com.

Global Art Reproduction is an educational resource dedicated to the art and science of fine art reproduction. Through articles, interviews, case studies, and a worldwide directory of print and scanning partners, it helps artists, museums, galleries, and institutions preserve, reproduce, and share works of art. Learn more at GlobalArtReproduction.com.