The biblical account of the creation of the world in seven days was central to medieval Christians' understanding of the natural and spiritual worlds. The Getty Center is now presenting selected artistic representations and juxtaposing them with contemporary works by Harmonia Rosales: Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages opens on January 27 in Los Angeles.
How was the biblical creation of the world visualized and interpreted? The Getty Center in Los Angeles explores this question through 15 selected medieval manuscripts from its own collection and juxtaposes them with four contemporary works by Harmonia Rosales (b. 1984). »The biblical story of Creation formed the basis of how medieval Christians viewed the world and continues to exert a strong influence on many artists today, seeing it both as an etiological origin story and as a metaphor for the human condition«, says Timothy Potts, Director of the Getty Museum. »Alongside contemporary works by Harmonia Rosales, the Museum objects in the exhibition explore traditional and divergent interpretations of Creation, challenging and reframing medieval works of art in the process.« The exhibition is divided into various sections, including Visualizing the Creation, Creation in the Abrahamic Faiths, The Introduction of Evil, and Beginnings and Ends. The exhibition Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages runs from January 27 to April 19.
Harmonia Rosales is an Afro-Cuban-American artist born in Chicago. She is known for her reinterpretations of Renaissance and Baroque artworks featuring Black protagonists and West African symbols and myths. Since 2017, she has been visualizing the Orishas, the deities of the Yoruba tradition, in her works. Rosales challenges Eurocentric ideals of beauty, power, and divinity, thereby reshaping both art history and cultural consciousness. In September 2025, she created her first public sculpture, Unbound, a commissioned work for King's Chapel in Boston. Also in 2025, her debut novel CHRONICLES OF ORI: An African Epic was published.
As part of the InterNationalgalerie series, the Alte Nationalgalerie invites other institutions to exhibit in its own spaces. Kicking off the series on June 18 is the National Museum in Warsaw with the exhibition Inventing Myths.
Through June 27, Elvira Flamm is showcasing three works from her series Ikonen ohne Namen (Icons without Names) in the Made in Berlin Art Award 2026 exhibition. She was selected as one of 20 artists for the show at the BBA Gallery.
