Given their fragile state, Vincent van Gogh’s paintings don’t tend to leave the Amsterdam museum that houses them, and yet, Londoners will have a chance to get up close and personal with the famous post-impressionist artist’s work in the new year.
An interactive, multisensory touring exhibition opening on Upper Ground, in the South Bank cultural district, the Van Gogh Museum’s “Meet Vincent van Gogh” experience has a lofty mission: bringing the icon’s art to a global audience, using museum research, the artist’s own personal letters, and the latest technology to make it all come to life.
With an automated audio-guide narration, large-scale projections, interactive installations, and state-of-the-art set work, visitors will be able to journey through the key moments and locations in Van Gogh’s life: his childhood in the Netherlands, his time in Paris and the Arles countryside, the asylum in St. Rémy, and the wheat field where he shot himself in the stomach, leading to his eventual death.
The directive “Please, do touch!” is the exhibit’s modus operandi. Guests will be able to feel the Dutch master’s brush strokes via oversized recreations of his paintings, grab a seat at the Potato Eaters table and take an art lesson, and snap a selfie in the recreation of Vincent’s bedroom, all while listening to the stories behind his creations.
Fresh off its 2019 residencies in Seoul and Barcelona, with Lisbon still to come, London’s “Meet Vincent van Gogh” is being produced by Activities & Events Ltd., a joint venture between sightseeing company Golden Tours and Spanish promoter PROACTIV: Live Entertainment. The venture pulled in some 400,000 people in Spain and South Korean, and the team is hoping for more of the same in the UK.
“2019 has been an outstanding year,” Arnold van de Water, the exhibit’s general manager, said in a press release. “From Barcelona to Seoul, the Experience has achieved precisely what the Van Gogh Museum intended it to: enriching and inspiring people around the world.”
The exhibit runs through 21 May 2020. For more information, visit meetvincent.com.
