Online Exhibition "Virtual Realities: The Art of M.C. Escher"

 

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in collaboration with Kunst Publica and the M.C. Escher Foundation, presents Virtual Realities: The Art of M. C. Escher from the Michael S. Sachs Collection. The project is a fully immersive, “walkable” online exhibition—the digital twin of the acclaimed exhibition of the same title that was presented by the MFAH in 2022—that allows audiences around the world to move through the MFAH galleries as if they were physically present.

 

Visit the MFA Shop website for exclusive M.C. Escher books and gifts.

 

Produced by Kunst Publica, the online exhibition faithfully recreates the gallery environment where the 2022 exhibition was originally presented at the MFAH. Virtual Realities extends the life of this museum presentation while remaining faithful to the visitor experience. Move room to room, look closely, and explore in real time. Created from a high-fidelity scan of the physical exhibition, the project preserves its spatial layout, curatorial sequencing, and visual relationships. The exhibition is available in 15 languages, making it accessible to a truly global audience. 
  
“Digital exhibitions will become an increasingly important way for museums to reach audiences who may not otherwise be able to visit in person. This project not only brings the museum’s Escher exhibition back to life, but also expands the museum’s educational outreach with novel possibilities for educators, students and anyone with access to the internet.” —Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 

Featuring more than 400 works and archival materials from Escher’s studio, the exhibition offers a sweeping journey through the artist’s career. Prints, drawings, watercolors, sketchbooks, wood and linoleum blocks, lithographic stones, and the artist’s working tools reveal how Escher developed his ideas and continually pushed the possibilities of graphic art. Each work has been carefully captured using cutting-edge technologies and placed in its original exhibition context, allowing visitors to experience the show as a three-dimensional space rather than just flat reproductions. 
  
As visitors move through the galleries, they can examine works from any angle and closer than ever before possible, zooming in to study Escher’s extraordinary precision in ways that are difficult to achieve in a traditional museum setting. The exhibition also introduces “Walter,” an AI-generated exhibition guide that provides access to the artist’s writings, related research and historical context, answers questions in real time, and creates personalized guided tours based on users’ individual interests and queries.