Under the starry night
China gets first look at the Van Gogh Museum’s interactive exhibition on the Dutch master’s life
A shot rings out in the yellow wheat fields trailing a group of crows in the sky, with the wind blowing and the smell of straw floating in the air. Then you hear the voice of Vincent van Gogh, who’s just shot himself in the chest, revealing how desperate he feels.
This is the opening of an exhibition on the life of the Dutch genius of colours, in which hi-tech effects offer a glimpse into Vincent’s world.
The interactive show “Meet Vincent Van Gogh”, produced by the Van Gogh Museum, had its world debut in Beijing on June 18. It will tour China, including Macao and Shanghai, for five years and then cover the world.
“We’ve done lots of research on Van Gogh and we know him well,” says Axel Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, “so we want to share it with as many people as possible.
“The show is designed for places where there are no works of Van Gogh. People don’t have to travel to Amsterdam to know the great artist.”
In a U-shaped exhibition hall, the artist’s life is explored in stages, from boyhood to his struggles as an emerging artist in the Netherlands, Antwerp and Paris, his time in Arles in the south of France and the illness that led to his suicide in 1890. Also examined is his legacy and lingering relevance.
High-resolution images of Van Gogh’s works from the Dutch museum are presented with quotations from his letters, lifelike 3D reproductions of his art and replicas of his famous bedroom in Arles, a cafe in Paris and his original work studio. Visitors can even sit on the bed in that bedroom. They can spend time admiring the self-portraits while sitting on a pile of straw and get a feel for his brushstrokes by touching a metres-high sculpture based on his painting “The Harvest”.
They can paint with their fingers on a digital screen, using the colours and swirling strokes Van Gogh employed in such celebrated works as “Starry Night” and “Sunflowers”.
Rene van Blerk, senior curator of education at the Van Gogh Museum, is asked where the notion for the show came from. “We don’t have enough space for so many interactive activities to enhance the stories of the artist’s life,” he says. Ruger is confident the exhibition, which took nearly two years to mount, will prove popular. It’s a much richer and broader presentation of the artist’s extraordinary life than other material available to the public, he says.
One of the visitors, Liang Jianxin, says she’s more interested in Van Gogh’s life and work than the technology used in the show. “Chinese have lots of opportunities to see hi-tech, so we’re more attracted by details such as how Van Gogh created ‘The Bedroom’.”
Lam Ching Kui, chairman of Wai Chun Culture, which won the bid to organise the show in China last year, says its invested more than 100 million yuan (Bt536 million) so far, while similar shows staged previously cost no more than 10 million yuan each.
Tickets to such multimedia exhibitions typically cost 100 yuan, the same going to see a film, but admission to “Meet Vincent Van Gogh” in Beijing is 288 yuan, equivalent to the price for a stage play or concert.
“I think it’s well worth it. You need at least 45 minutes to explore all the details,” says Lam, describing previous multimedia shows in China as “PowerPoint presentations”.
Mind your ear
- “Meet Vincent van Gogh” is at The Square of Jinyuan Shopping Centre in Beijing until September 16.
- Learn more at www.MeetVincent.com.
