The Van Gogh Experience
By: Kristy Heath
For Mother’s Day this past May my husband and child bought tickets to the Van Gough Immersion Exhibit, it wasn’t open yet, but the tickets were the gift nonetheless. It was one of the best Mother’s Day gifts I’ve gotten. We packed into the car on opening weekend in June and took the 2-hour trip. It was raining and lightning that day, so it was a gloomy trip, but the bad weather wasn’t a bad thing, more on that to come later. The exhibit was set up in a retail building space and from the outside looked disappointing, but one should never judge a book by its cover. We stepped through the double doors into a world Van Gough himself could have dreamed up.
The walls of the foyer were painted with large 3D sunflowers against a blue and white splattered sky, and it was beautiful. We enjoyed some Japanese floral tea while we stood in line to present our tickets. Beautiful ambient music played throughout the exhibit. The ticket worker scanned us in and showed us to the exhibit entrance after a few rules we were allowed to enter. The first area had a huge holographic bust of Van Gough on display which went through his early years, like how he struggled with mental instability his whole life. It told us of how he first worked as an art dealer and how he left his work selling art, turned to religion, and moved to Belgium.
In the second area, we went through a small corridor into a huge open room with some prints of his work. These had QR codes we could scan to receive information about each one. But the main attraction of this room was on every wall there were huge animated virtual copies of his work for example everyone knows “Starry Night” but this one had a full-on documentary playing as the stars twinkled and shone. I learned all about the cypress tree’s relevance and that it represents the soul and loneliness. I learned about how he would never have seen the same beauty we see when we look at this masterpiece because he was most likely color-blind. I learned the way he mixed colors and the colors he used is how we can make that guess.
There were four separate areas like this in that big room. One just had a large white vase, but when the documentary started, many other vase paintings grew from the single vase. The vase transformed and suddenly there were sunflowers which turned to daisies, then to poppies, and irises, and continued until all his still life vases were done. At each of these areas, there was also a QR code so that the small documentaries could be enjoyed by the hearing impaired, complete with closed captioning. We followed the room into another small walkway and into another big room; not as big as the first but still big.
In this room, it’s hard to explain but it was like 3D layered art. They essentially cut out parts of the works and placed them in front of other parts to make it like a full 3D picture when you stood in certain spots. These were paired with prints of the works. In this room, we saw the layered art technique visualized in his “Night Café” and “Bedroom at Arles’”. There was another but there was so much to see I don’t remember which it was. But looking at these works set up the way they were was like looking at a cartoon but in a pleasant way. Each of the works again had QR codes.
We moved on past the layered room through a curtain and we were met by the biggest room so far. It was filled with comfortable chairs along each wall facing the one on the other side. And in the middle of the giant chair circle lay dozens of giant pillows and blankets. We soon saw why. After sitting and getting cozy the Immersion room came to life. We went through a menagerie of emotions; we lived inside all of his works. No documentary this time only music. Music that would intensify when it showed his “London fire” and “scream” but would slow and calm with his Japanese-inspired works. I saw some I had never seen and now are my favorite paintings. Move over Goya, the “Green Peacock Moth” might be my new favorite. It was genuinely an emotional experience, I cried. It was spiritual. After it was over we left the room and headed around to the gift shop. And after making small purchases we left.
I know immersion is debated in the Art History community because it takes guests away from visiting the actual works. Having more tactile experiences can be bad for a regular art museum. However, I thought it was wonderful. It grabbed me through the whole thing, and most importantly my child, who has ADHD, was able to enjoy it. While it may not be for “art snobs,” for the everyday Joe it was wonderful. We learned a lot, we enjoyed ourselves, and I recommend everyone to go see it if they get the chance, it was the best gift I could have gotten.
