At the Vancouver Convention Centre. Held over until September 7, 2021
Adult tickets from $39.99 at www.vancouver.imagine-vangogh.com. Children (4-15): $34.99. Children under the age of 4 admitted free but require a ticket
Posted July 20, 2021
Sometimes the only response to so much beauty is tears and within moments of entering the huge hall with floor-to-ceiling projections of Van Gogh’s paintings, I wept. Three hundred and sixty degrees of colossal, projected images on the walls and pillars – plus music – wrapped me in an embrace that was simply overwhelming. Details of paintings showing deep, exuberant brushstrokes made me feel Van Gogh was in the room with us: he felt present. And, having just read the display boards describing his life and his constant struggle with depression, my response was a complex mixture of sorrow and exhilaration: Van Gogh lived life large.
All the protocols are in place to keep you safe: masks, distancing, hand disinfecting and keeping the number of viewers small. Although no one asks you to leave, it takes about an hour to read through the biography (from Van Gogh’s birth in 1853 in the Netherlands to his death in 1890 in France) and to view the exhibit. By the time you are reading the last of boards (perhaps 5 or 6 of them), you can’t wait to enter the grand hall to see what you came to see. FYI: much – but not all – of the biography is posted on the website so you could conceivably read it beforehand and move right into the exhibit.
The music by Bach, Mozart, Saint-Saëns and Delibes is beautifully integrated into the images and adds immeasurably to the experience.
For the most part, a single painting is projected on one wall and then various details of it are expanded to fill all the other walls. You almost don’t know where to look because it’s all around you (including the floor). An eye. A haystack. A small child running to its farmer father. A boat. Poppies. Cherry blossoms exploding into bloom. Self-portraits. Some of the projections move up or down like a curtain to fill the entire space.
This fully immersive experience was conceived by Annabelle Mauger, developed with Julien Baron and grew out of Albert Plécy’s 70s Image Totale© characterized by the attempt to immerse the viewer completely in the work. There is nothing passive about Imagine Van Gogh; you feel you are inside the paintings. A description of the process is on the website and makes interesting reading.
Imagine Van Gogh has been extended to September 7, 2021 before moving on to Tacoma/Seattle and Boston. If you planned to see it and haven’t yet got around to it, get on it!
I can’t promise that you will weep but I can guarantee that you have never experienced Van Gogh this way before. It’s monumental and a fantastic tribute to the artist.