‘Voices of the Sacred, and Sculpture Immaterial’

     
Two events in New York City highlighting performing arts and fine arts I must tell you about.

In two weeks, on Saturday the 31st, New York University Global Spiritual Life will host “Voices of the Sacred” at The Brotherhood Synagogue. The concert will unite “artists representing three of the world’s great faith traditions all gathered together in one of New York City’s most historic religious landmarks. Since its founding almost 60 years ago, through its then unprecedented sharing of sacred space with a Greenwich Village church to its current home in a former Quaker meeting house, The Brotherhood Synagogue has always held as one of its core missions to create bridges of understanding across faiths, a mission that continues to this day.”

The Brotherhood Synagogue is located at 28 Gramercy Park South. The concert will begin at 8:30 p.m. Click here for information about the event, videos of the performers, and tickets.

Next month, on the 20th, the Museum of Biblical Art will re-open with the start of a new installation: “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” to run through June 14. On Saturday, February 21, MOBIA will host an all-day symposium in conjunction with this exhibit: “Material/Immaterial: A symposium on Fifteenth Century Sculpture.” From the publicity:

Courtesy MOBIA

Donatello, Saint John the Evangelist, c. 1409-11.

During this one-day symposium, nine speakers will engage issues around Renaissance sculpture. These talks will both enrich the understanding of the objects on display in “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello” and of the artists who created them, and also broaden the show’s horizons to encompass other chapters of the history of fifteenth century Italian sculpture.

Sculpture in the Age of Donatello

Courtesy MOBIA

Donatello, Saint John the Evangelist, detail.

Twenty-three masterpieces of early Florentine Renaissance sculpture—most never seen outside Italy—will be exhibited at MOBIA as the centerpiece of the museum’s tenth anniversary season. MOBIA will be the sole worldwide venue for this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition. These works by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Nanni di Banco, Luca della Robbia, and others were made in the first decades of the fifteenth century for Florence Cathedral (“Il Duomo”), which was then in the last phase of its construction, and are figural complements to Brunelleschi’s soaring dome, conveying an analogous sense of courage and human potential. Like the dome, these statues of prophets and saints express the spiritual tension of a faith-driven humanism destined to transform Western culture.

The Museum of Biblical Art is located at 1865 Broadway, at 61st Street, in Manhattan. Tickets for “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” are available here.