Beyond Van Gogh

June 13, 2021

Beyond Van Gogh

With the news of my mother Marta’s passing, Kathy and I made arrangements to travel to Winston-Salem to attend her memorial. We decided the best thing to do was to make the drive up and take our dog Jack, who was for many years Marta’s, with us. We arranged for a house sitter who would stay at our house and watch the cats, as we drove up. We had already made arrangements and had tickets to see an art exhibit in Miami this week, but were thankfully able to change the dates so that we could still attend, this time as we passed through Miami on the way to North Carolina.

The exhibit is called “Beyond Van Gogh” and is the first of the new wave of immersive, interactive art exhibits that are sweeping the nation to visit Miami. It utilizes cutting edge projection technology to create an incredible, beautiful immersive experience into the art and world of renowned painer Vincent Van Gogh.

Held at the prestigious Ice Palace Studios just North of downtown Miami and South of Wynwood, Kathy and I (and Jack) headed there after a quick lunch at Kush in Wynwood. Since we had Jack, we had to take turns experiencing the exhibit, which worked out perfectly because they had a beautiful hammock and picnic table filled area where we could hang out with the dog while the other went inside. There was even a bar and outdoor café which was especially nice.

The exhibit begins with a somewhat traditional display covering the history of Van Gogh, his life and times and the various stages of his artistic expression, but the payoff and what everyone has come to see is in the large warehouse space where the multimedia projection and immersive experience puts the viewer literally in the middle of Van Gogh’s colorful and powerful works.

It really is impossible to describe what must really be experienced, but it is a fantastic experience in which the Dutch master’s work literally explodes off every surface and even the floor and ceiling giving the person the true experience of being immersed in the swirling art and color that leaps off every surface. It is trippy, fun and beautiful.

Still photos do not begin to capture the experience, movement and color of the experience, which I really, really liked. While it will never take the place of seeing the original masterpieces, it is a cool reimagining of the artist’s work and if it helps introduce new people to art then I am all for it. It was fun and mesmerizing and something that I look forward to doing again at future exhibits with other artists or even with Van Gogh.

In fact there is another similar immersive Van Gogh exhibit that has opened just about a mile south of this one at the historic Olympia Theater that I hope to check out as well and I foresee a plethora of similar immersive type exhibits popping up around the country.

https://beyondvangogh.com/