Behind the red-bricked facade and marble friezes of the National Gallery of Denmark, visitors are now able to see nearly all of Michelangelo’s existing sculptures — the “most comprehensive” exhibition of his sculptural work assembled in 150 years according to the institution — and more than 1,000 miles away from where the majority of the Renaissance artist’s works are typically seen.
But to do so, the museum did not haul the 17-foot-tall David from the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, or the unfinished figure called “The Genius of Victory” that sits nearby in the Palazzo Vecchio. Instead, “Michelangelo Imperfect,” hosted at the SMK (short for Statens Museum for Kunst), relies on some 40 reproductions, including a new set of 3D-printed copies made for the show by the Madrid-based studio Factum Arte.
Included is a 19th-century bronze version of “David,” plaster casts of the four famed allegorical figures seen on the tombs of the Medici Chapel, and 3D-printed and cast sculptures of Pope Julius II’s unfinished tomb. Though it’s not the first time a Michelangelo sculpture has been 3D printed — the University of Florence unveiled a David replica made of acrylic resin at the 2020 Dubai Expo — this time, the technology has been used to help bring together nearly all of the artist’s sculptural works in one place.
The show also features original works by the Italian artist, including 20 drawings and a group of maquettes — preliminary models in wax and clay.
“It is a bit of an experiment,” said Matthias Wivel, the show’s curator, in a video call with CNN. “It’s an exhibition that consists largely of reproductions.” Today, he added, “it’s not something you see so often.”
Michelangelo Buonarroti, the 15th-to-16th-century sculptor, painter and draftsman who has endured as one of the most famous artists of all time, is recognized for the dynamism and emotional qualities of his classical sculptures. They twist and turn in space, tense their muscles, or hold seemingly precarious poses despite being rendered in solid white Carrara marble.
At Factum Arte’s studio, the team didn’t just 3D print each object, but used a mix of new and traditional techniques. The intensive process involved recording each work with photogrammetry and Lidar scanning to make a digital twin. They first printed each work in resin, similar to the “David” replica exhibited in Dubai, but they didn’t stop there. Then, they created silicone molds from the printed forms and cast each in a marble composite to get closer to the artist’s original material, before hand-finishing the final sculpture.
“Our goal is to make the (artworks) visually identical under exhibition conditions,” said Factum Arte’s founder Adam Lowe, in a video call with CNN. “You’re able to distinguish a difference if you can touch them or if you can tap them, because the temperature of the marble is not quite the same.”
Creating twins
But why exhibit replicas at all? And, if it really is virtually indistinguishable to the untrained eye (albeit a little warmer to the touch), is it Michelangelo enough?
Today, we might not assign much value to reproductions, but in the 19th century, plaster cast versions of famous sculptures were the stars of many museums. Institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago began their collections with plaster casts, and the Louvre’s plaster cast workshop, created in 1794, is still active today. Visitors who have traveled to Florence are already likely to have encountered a plaster doppelgänger of Michelangelo’s “David” in its original outdoor location at the Piazza della Signoria, but they have also been erected in London and Moscow, while bronze versions can be found internationally as well. Many were cast soon after the largest Michelangelo exhibition at the time took place in Florence in 1875 to mark the 400th anniversary of his birth, and featured a mix of original sculptures and new plaster duplicates, Wivel said.