Claudia Gould, the director of the Jewish Museum in New York City, describes the allure of Leonard Cohen as beyond mere fandom. “He goes right into your soul,” Gould explains. “Once he gets in there, it’s hard to extricate yourself. Leonard speaks to us on many different levels, whether through his music, activism, language and everything else he’s known for.”

It’s those principles that form the bedrock of Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, an immersive exhibition on the legendary singer-songwriter on display at the Jewish Museum that commissioned an array of artists to interrupt Cohen’s sprawling career through the prism of a variety of different mediums. The result is not only a jaunt through Cohen’s mind, but also an exploration of how he’s understood by the creative world at large.

“It really articulates through the journey of his life,” says Gould of Cohen, who passed away in 2016 and got his start as a poet and writer, later transitioning into an acclaimed career as a singer-songwriter behind legendary songs such as Hallelujah and Suzanne. “It’s him, but through the eyes of others.”

Like Cohen himself, the exhibit was born in Canada. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of the founding of Montreal, the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art doubled their budget and were trying to find a unique way to commemorate the occasion. “Suddenly it just hit us,” explains John Zeppetelli, the museum’s director and chief curator who helped concoct A Crack in Everything in Montreal alongside Victor Shiffman. “It made the most sense considering he’s not only loved in Montreal, but a global icon.”

Since planning began before his death on 5 November 2016, the next step was to get Cohen’s blessing; a tricky endeavour for the notoriously insulated artist. “We knew he was extremely private, so we anxiously wrote to Leonard and his management and told them our idea. Several days later we got a message that said, ‘Well, Leonard will not get in your way.’”

The resulting exhibit, which originally opened in Montreal in 2017 on the first anniversary of his death, paints a picture of Cohen’s many artistic endeavors and shines a spotlight on his unique perspective on life itself. “We wanted to answer the question, ‘Who is Leonard Cohen?’” says Zeppetelli. “He’s a great philosopher, he’s a great thinker, he has beautiful mastery of the language, he has a compelling quality of his voice, his songs, novels, poetry and on and on.”

One such installation that touches on those themes is an immersive audio and visual exploration of Cohen performances on multiple screens, the brainchild of the multidisciplinary artist George Fok who says that the spiritual aspects of Cohen’s work provided inspiration. “[On one hand] it’s a tribute to his monumental career and is intended for fans and visitors to discover, celebrate, rejoice and reminisce about the Cohen that we know,” says Fok. “But beneath the surface, the installation is an attempted biographical depiction of Cohen’s spiritual journey, told through the different window of life stages in his career, in a non-linear time travel manner.”

Other aspects of the exhibit include intercut insights from a variety of Cohen interviews, a multimedia gallery that highlights covers of Cohen songs courtesy of contemporary acts such as the National and Moby, and a Wurlitzer organ repurposed so each key plays a certain poetic soundbite from Cohen himself. Guests can also feast their eyes on Cohen’s many drawings; they’re projected on the wall.

“The first time I experienced A Crack in Everything in Montreal, I walked in apprehensive,” says Gould, who was a force in transferring the exhibit to New York. “All of this work was commissioned and with commissions you don’t know how it’s going to come out. But by the time I walked out, I had tears coming down my face. It was very moving.”

Aside from its current stay in New York, there are plans to bring the exhibit to Copenhagen this coming fall, to San Francisco in 2020, and Zeppetelli hopes that London and Paris could be in its future as well. In the meantime, the team who brought it to life hopes to bridge a gap between Cohen’s art and the present day, and introduce or reintroduce Cohen’s work to both new generations and longtime fans.

“We are now living in a digital age of hyperconnectivity with our mind is constantly affected by streams of instant content and information, but in sharp contrast, Leonard Cohen’s works are the result of slow processing,” muses Fok of Cohen’s continuing importance. “It’s ancient and timeless and rich in wisdom and spirituality, which all might seem irrelevant in today’s secular society. Our souls need to be fed with meaningful raison d’etre and Cohen’s work is one of those rare genres could fill such void.”

• Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything runs until 8 September at New York’s Jewish Museum