Offtopic: Immersive Vincent van Gogh

29 Jul 2021 • 8 minute read

Cadence has a global holiday tomorrow and Breakfast Bytes will not appear. Back on Monday. Did you see the (excellent) Netflix show Emily in Paris? In one episode, the characters go to see a show which is called Immersive van Gogh. In Paris, it opened in 2018 and was seen by over two million people. If I told you that it consisted of an old foundry, with animated versions of van Gogh paintings projected on all the walls and set to music, it sounds a bit kitschy. And when I say "foundry", I mean the metal kind of foundry, not the silicon wafer kind. But it is not in the least kitschy.

From its Paris roots, it has taken over and is (or in some cases was or will be) in Toronto, Miami, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, plus many more (see the end of the post for a complete list). One advantage of technology is that having made a show like this, it is relatively easy to replicate it around the world. Plus, art like this doesn't involve words so it goes just as easily to Tokyo and Shanghai.

And it is currently in San Francisco, where its run has just be extended to early September. Something is also coming to San Jose on September 24, but it has the air of a different show trying to pass itself off as the real thing. I went to see it in San Francisco earlier this month. As it happens, purely by coincidence, I built a Paris connection of my own since it was France's Fête Nationale (Independence Day), July 14. It is not held in an old foundry but in an old legendary concert venue, Fillmore West, on the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Market Street. Beware, the area around there is a traffic disaster right now due to all the work the city has been endlessly doing on Van Ness for the last five years. My recommendation would be to park in the 5th and Mission parking garage and get the 14 Mission bus, which will drop you half a block away, and runs about every five minutes.

To give you an idea of what it was like, here is the clip from Emily in Paris. Netflix got to film it with about two other people in the room, not to mention with stabilized professional cameras, so the quality of its video is a lot better than mine, shot on an iPhone with more like three hundred people in the room. Plus, we had to see it with covid-distancing rules, so we had to keep to our own spaced illuminated circle on the floor.

Here's a paragraph from the press release announcing the New York show (on now, until October) which gives a little more detail of which paintings have been used:

Created by the world-renowned master of digital art, Italy’s Massimiliano Siccardi, who for 30 years has been pioneering immersive exhibitions in Europe, Immersive Van Gogh features stunning towering projections that illuminate the artistic genius's mind. You will be immersed in Van Gogh’s works – from his sunny landscapes and night scenes to his portraits and still life paintings. The installation includes the Mangeurs de pommes de terre (The Potato Eaters, 1885), the Nuit étoilée (Starry Night, 1889), Les Tournesols (Sunflowers, 1888), and La Chambre à coucher (The Bedroom, 1889), and so much more.

Just to see these pictures for real would require trips to MOMA in New York, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (where? You've never heard of it, me neither, but it is a small village in the Netherlands and holds the second biggest collection of Van Gogh's works after Amsterdam). Plus, maybe, Paris, London, Chicago, and Tokyo, since van Gogh painted several versions of some of them.

immersive van gogh still photo

Go and See It

Obviously, I recommend you go and see it if it is in (or shows up in the future in) a city near you. It is a bit overpriced, to my mind, but Gogh anyway (this pun only works if you pronounce van Gogh like an American as opposed to correctly in Dutch, or even in an attempt at Dutch like we do in England).

Van Gogh Museum

If you like van Gogh, then another trip to put on your bucket list is to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I can't really tell you what it is like these days since I last went when I was going around Europe on InterRail in 1973. I expect a lot has changed, although obviously not the paintings. There is a widely held belief that van Gogh didn't sell any of his paintings in his lifetime. But according to the Museum:

We don’t know exactly how many paintings Van Gogh sold during this lifetime, but in any case, it was more than a couple. Vincent’s first commission was from his uncle Cor. He was an art dealer and wanted to help his nephew on his way, so he ordered 19 cityscapes of The Hague. Vincent sold his first painting to the Parisian paint and art dealer Julien Tanguy, and his brother Theo successfully sold another work to a gallery in London. The Red Vineyard, which Vincent painted in 1888, was bought by Anna Boch, the sister of Vincent’s friend Eugène Boch.

By the way, van Gogh's most famous painting is probably Sunflowers. But he actually painted five different versions, so you may not have to go all the way to Amsterdam to see one of them. There are also versions in Philadelphia, Munich, London, and Tokyo (the last being a reproduction since the original was destroyed in an air-raid in 1945). The one in London is in the National Gallery, which faces onto Trafalgar Square (and entrance is free). If you are a tourist in London, you will probably be planning on visiting Trafalgar Square already. Go in the main door and turn right—that's where all the impressionists are and many of the most famous paintings in the world.

In the US, the most famous Vincent van Gogh painting is probably Starry Night. That's because it is in MOMA in New York and you don't have to go to Europe to see it.

Small Print

If you are in the US, this is the latest version of the schedule that I can find. I'm amazed how many cities are on the list. If you are in Europe or Asia, there is probably a similar list but I couldn't find it.

Offtopic: Immersive Vincent van Gogh

Go and See It

Van Gogh Museum

Small Print

Chicago

San Francisco

Los Angeles

New York City

Dallas

Charlotte, North Carolina

Las Vegas

Phoenix

Minneapolis

Houston

Cleveland, Ohio

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Denver

Orlando, Florida

Detroit

Columbus, Ohio

Nashville

Kansas City, Missouri