Death Valley Project: The Making of the Last Supper Sculpture DVD

The Making of the Last Supper Sculpture : Runtime 50:24 Color DVD USA

Produced by Goldwell Open Air Museum. Written and Directed by Suzanne Hackett and Charles Morgan

Original Music by Christopher Reiner
Original Video Production and Direction by G. John Slagle

An Official Selection of the
18th Annual Wine Country Film Festival 2004

In 1984, Belgian sculptor Albert Szukalski traveled to the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, at the edge of Death Valley, to drape live models from a neighboring town in burlap-soaked plaster and pose them as in the famous painting of “the Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Despite enduring over 100 pounds of wet plaster in the scorching heat of a Nevada summer, the models embraced the experience as a rare chance for immortality. For Szukalski, America and the desert represented a place of ultimate freedom to pursue his artistic vision.

The production of this DVD features the only extant footage of the original creation of the Last Supper sculpture, a piece which was to become the founding artwork of the Goldwell Open Air Museum. The DVD not only reveals how the sculpture was made, but also the reasons why the artist chose to create it in relative obscurity in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada.

Bonus Features: 

12-page booklet featuring an essay by William Fox, author of
The Void, the Grid, and the Sign

“The Source” interview of Albert Szukalski by Debra McKillop

”Il est fini” music video

Slideshow of artworks at the Goldwell Open Air Museum