Van Don’t Gogh
We recently went to St. Petersburg, FL to visit my aunt and uncle. My aunt called, “I got you tickets to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Dalí Museum.”
“Cool,” I answered, “I can’t wait to see Van Gogh through the lens of Salvador Dalí.” Obviously, I did not read anything about the Immersive Van Gogh Experience that is touring the country, I’ve been busy getting ready for #2021analytics, so forgive my error.
I waited in line for my appointed time, entered, and then was crammed into a double wide line (social distancing, anyone?) waiting for entrance to the exhibit. Entering into the dark, there were two rooms, one significantly smaller than the other. Each room was lined with floor to ceiling screens, some of which displayed quotes from Van Gogh in a typeface emulating his handwriting, others were filled with images from his work.
When I returned, my aunt asked how the exhibit was. “I loved the Dalí Museum,” I replied.
“What about the show?” she pressed on, planning on attending the next week with some friends.
“I really don’t want to ruin it for you guys with my take on it, why don’t you call me after you see it, and we can talk about it,” my Art History minor now making me slightly uncomfortable.
“No, really, I want to know, I have a friend coming down from NYC who is a super art aficionado, should I buy her a ticket?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “No. Definitely don’t buy her a ticket. It was trite. It felt like someone’s senior project who won a well-funded contest. I do love the fact that it is bringing people in droves to the museums, they need the funding and the ticket sales after this horrible year.”
“But for an educated art lover, it doesn’t deliver. Surrounded by people taking selfies and getting the perfect image to post on Instagram (an image of an image of an image, assuming the curator took the photos themselves, otherwise add another ‘of an image’ on the list) I started to laugh. Wait, I thought, is this the exhibit?”
Touted as “stepping inside a painting,” the viewer is led through Van Gogh’s life by his works throughout time, highlighting his decent into mental illness, accompanied by a stirring soundtrack. The viewer is now having an art experience, based on the curator’s opinion of what is important in his work.
The video zooms into the brush strokes, something I usually do in person, much to the consternation of the security guards. Seeing the hills and valleys of how the paint is laid on the canvas lends insight into how an artist works, part of them is infused into the canvas. You are now experiencing this creation that the artist touched and are somehow now connected in a way that a video can’t convey.
But watching the people having their “art experience” left me wanting for an authentic experience for myself. With the end of the pandemic in sight, perhaps I’ll schedule a trip to Amsterdam to see those brush stokes myself.