THE ARTS
Vincent Van Gogh
Still Crazy, But Relevant, After All These Years JENNIF E R F LOT O
I first fell in love with Vincent van Gogh after reading Irving Stone’s biography of the troubled artist, Lust for Life, as a teenager. Fast forward to multiple viewings of his original works at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Jeu de Paume then the Museé d’Orsay in Paris, and pretty much any exhibit I could find in the States, and I knew I was hooked. But my love affair with Vincent took on new meaning as I viewed the extraordinary Immersive Experience of his work that’s traveled the world this past year. Mild electronica music flows as the paintings shimmy along the floor and up the wall, freeze in place, then evaporate into the next delightful piece. Amid this multi-sensory explosion of more than 30 of his paintings, I felt like I was inside Vincent’s frenzied mind, then inside the work itself. So, why write about a painter who’s been dead for 131 years? My prediction for 2022 is that as we continue emerge from the
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RELEVANCE REPORT 2021-22
pandemic, we will crave the opportunity to view, engage with and otherwise enjoy works of art from pretty much anyone. That means street art, budding sculptors, performance artists, visits to large and local museums and, of course, absorbing the acknowledged masters. Yes, we initially headed to the beaches of Hawaii, the wonders of Wyoming and lakeshores of Michigan when we finally “got out” of lockdown, but I believe after 18 months of being stuck celebrating art and culture via Zoom, we’re ready to venture out, and in new ways. Immersive experiences will dominate, as younger audiences celebrate the sight-andsound technology that eclipses their stareat-the-wall museum experiences. And it’s not just fine art that is engaging viewers of all ages: Architecture lives and breathes in Medusa, the immersive headline event of this year’s London Design Festival. Viewers simultaneously don mixed reality
