At MoMI, art looks beneath the skin

Built around the parallel rise of early cinema and X-ray imaging, the exhibition revisits a moment when vision expanded in two directions at once: toward motion and toward the body’s interior. That historical frame helps make sense of the works on view, which ask what it means to see a body, measure it, expose it, or protect it.

Overexposed brings together research films and contemporary works by 16 artists, including Panteha Abareshi, Peggy Ahwesh, Zuza Banasińska, Barbara Hammer, Ana Mendieta, and Lucien Castaing-Taylor with Véréna Paravel. The exhibition’s strength lies in its range of approaches: some works treat the body as a scientific subject, others as a site of vulnerability, memory, or identity.

For artists and readers interested in drawing or painting, the exhibition is especially revealing as a study of looking. It shows how imaging technologies changed the way bones, flesh, organs, and movement are represented, while also shaping social and political ideas about care, power, and intimacy.

The museum is also running related talks and screenings, including a November 5 program on the Visible Human Project. A catalog edited by Sonia Epstein and Elisabeth Sherman is available at the MoMI Shop and through booksellers.