Saturday, March 19, 2022

The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit has been playing in Minneapolis for a few weeks, and will continue into April. It was created and is presented by Lighthouse Immersive. This company is based in Toronto, Ontario, and has venues in several locations. It is an experiential entertainment multi-plex, designed to cultivate community and creativity through large-scale events and exhibitions of all art forms. It was certainly successful with this experience.

A few displays in the lobby greeted us before entering the experience. The first photo highlights the only painting that Van Gogh is known to have sold during his lifetime, for the equivalent of $2,000 in today’s dollars. The most recent sale of one of his paintings went for $90 million in 1990, equal to double that today. The middle photo is a painting of the local Stone Arch Bridge on a starry night. The last speaks to the style of “daubing,” a style favored by the artist, that uses undiluted paint spread thickly, then mixed in with other colors.

I read the Pre-Show Audio Guide, which took me through his short story. He began painting at the age of 27, but was prolific during the remaining 10 years of his life, painting over 2,000 works of art. We were directed into a large room where pictures, paintings, impressions were flowing across the walls and even the floor, accompanied by music that enhanced the experience. The show lasted only about 35 minutes, but we stayed through it 3 times! I say that my heart swelled, I can’t think of any better way to describe what I was feeling.