Walls full of Vincent

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the death in1890 of Vincent van Gogh and a multimedia show in Shanghai and Beijing will celebrate the Dutch painter’s short yet prolific career. The exhibition also aims to challenge public preconceptions.

Opening in April, “Van Gogh Alive” creates a multi-sensory experience. In the course of 35 minutes it projects more than 3,000 high-resolution photos on 40 huge screens – and on the columns and floor of the exhibition venues. The images are of Van Gogh’s canvases, sketches, drafts and the letters he wrote mainly to his younger brother, Theo.

Australian event-producer Grande Exhibitions premiered “Van Gogh Alive” in Singapore in 2011. Technicians dissected and magnified different parts of the paintings to show how he handled layers of pigment. They even animated some details – the blackbirds in “Wheatfield with Crows” come to life, for example. A train he sketched rumbles across screens soaring up to seven metres high.

The show begins with a series of self-portraits and then follows the course of his whole life in the Netherlands and France. Among the signature works that appear are “Starry Night”, “Sunflowers” and “Cafe Terrace at Night”.

The score – comprised of symphonies composed in Van Gogh’s time – helps immerse the audience in its surroundings. Grande Exhibitions developed a Sensory 4 system, a set of computers that control the projectors and sound system. The firm has created five such Sensory 4 art exhibitions thus far, with others examining “Monet to Cezanne” and “101 Inventions That Changed the World”. 

“Van Gogh Alive” caters to China’s growing fascination with Western oil painting. A Claude Monet exhibition at the K11 Art Mall drew more than 300,000 visitors over three months last year. Wang Zhongjun, the Chinese movie mogul, spent US$61.8 million (Bt2 billion) for Van Gogh’s “Still Life – Vase with Daisies and Poppies” at Sotheby’s New York in November.

“The Monet show at the K11 proved to be a successful marriage of art exhibition and commercial property,” says Zhou Yi, the upcoming exhibition’s curator and an independent TV and stage producer. “It attracted not only art lovers but also those who don’t go to museums or galleries. The sensation it caused shows that fine art is not limited to a small crowd if it comes to people instead of making people coming to it.

 “Van Gogh lived a legendary life, with so many stories to tell,” says Zhou. She believes this show will reshape people’s attitudes toward fine art.

Artist and critic Chen Danqing notes that modern exhibitions break down museum walls and national borders, because digital technologies give people access to all manner of art. “If Van Gogh were still alive he would have been rather surprised to find his works being segmented, enlarged and minimised,” says Chen.

“Van Gogh Alive” runs from April to early August at Shanghai Xintiandi, supported by a base frame being built in an artificial lake.

The show will then spend another three months at Beijing’s Joy City Mall, which hosted the immensely popular 100 Doraemon Secret Gadgets Expo last spring.