Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper has disappeared, according to artist Yigal Ozeri. Most of us know the Last Supper through its muting veil of time and mold. But recent restorations have stripped the painting of its patina of age — along with quite a bit of da Vinci’s original pigment. The repainting has resulted in something that is no longer the original da Vinci but something “new and improved.” In his latest body of work, Ozeri has taken compositions found within the original unrestored da Vinci (a bowl on a table, the head of Judas) and repainted them on delicate layers of translucent paper, reveling in the subtle organic patterns of decay.
This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2003.