Immerse yourself in art: Everything you need to know about Van Gogh The Immersive Experience

Every few years, there are art shows  that take  the world by storm. We experienced this again in 2021, continuing into 2022, with the Van Gogh Immersive Experience. The Van Gogh Immersive Experience is a virtual reality exhibition of the paintings of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh.  Currently, most of the exhibitions in Europe have already ended, but you can still see all of the exhibits in the USA. Now that fully vaccinated travellers are finally allowed to travel to America again, this could be the perfect excuse to visit one of the 13 cities in America where the exhibition is still running. Just remember that – whether you want to travel to New York, New Orleans, Washington DC or Las Vegas – you must apply for an ESTA (a simpler version of a visa, which is intended for certain countries included in the citizens) in advance. Also, the ESTA is valid for 2 years so you can come back again.

What is the experience like?

In most exhibitions, visitors move from one room to another, with the walls (and sometimes even the floors or ceilings) decorated with moving projections of Van Gogh’s works. The works are usually accompanied by appropriate music. Some exhibitions also use sensory elements, such as aromas of cedar, cypress, lemon or nutmeg, to further immerse visitors in the works. Some exhibitions use virtual reality headsets that take visitors into the artist’s experience.

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Van Gogh The Immersive Experience is created and led by the same team from the Atelier des Lumières in Paris (the digital art show featured in the Netflix series Emily in Paris). The exhibition has over 46,000 square metres of projections and lasts an hour.

Expect to see iconic works by Van Gogh, including The Potato Eaters (1885), The Starry Night (1889), Sunflowers (1888) and The Bedroom (1889). The large-scale digital animations of the painter’s works are accompanied by original songs composed by Italian multimedia composer Luca Longobardi. The exhibitions are held in major galleries in most American cities.

 Where does the concept come from?

Other artists have had similar exhibitions, especially Picasso and Monet, but it is Van Gogh’s popularity that makes his exhibitions the most successful. The first exhibition in 2008 was entitled “Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition”. The exhibition was created by Annabelle Mauger, who was inspired by a model made by her husband’s grandfather, known as “Image Totale”.

What role does the coronavirus play in all this?

 Most exhibitions in 2021 and 2022 had to comply with regulations related to the coronavirus, including wearing face masks and keeping a distance. Some exhibitions were rescheduled due to the outbreak of the virus, and at least one exhibition was modified so that visitors could view the works from their cars. The corona crisis was seen as one of the reasons for the high visitor numbers and popularity of the Immersive Experiences in 2021 and 2022, as many visitors had to stay at home during the lockdowns due to the corona virus.