Van Gogh

[bill_schubert]

I love art despite my Art Appreciation classes in college.  I had a friend of mine in the class who had a better attitude about it "Hey, want to get stoned and go look at some pictures?".  But I had no patience.  Despite that I know right much about 1800's through 1930's or so art and I love it.

So the local speedway, AKA, The Circuit of the Americas, brought. "The Van Gogh" experience to Austin.  I don't know where it came from but it had issues.  The core of the 'experience' was half an hour in a large room (in a huge tent) that projected Van Gogh images onto the 20 foot or so high walls and the floor (not the ceiling, though).  

Size can be ascertained by the person standing next to the wall here

I had some larger 360 degree shots that would not really work on this site.  The room and projections and sound reminded me of a Laurie Anderson concert.  It was multimedia theater.  And as far as that went it was interesting.  Not overwhelmingly inspired but you know someone was trying very hard for that.

But the rooms that fed into the half hour extravaganza were made up of the worst art appreciation class I've ever attended.  Huge plastic windows hung interspersed artistically with empty frames and some mirrors.  Quotes from Van Gogh (as a writer, he was a great painter) were written on some of the windows, blurbs about the art and impressionism and bits about Van Gogh and Gaugin were on the rest.  Much of the writing had grammar and spelling errors and at best made the entire impressionism movement sound like a snooze fest.

So, all in all not worth the two hour drive and $80.  But, that said, I've not got in my head that I need to go back and do some wandering through the 1800's art world again.  I miss it.

While I was out.... England and Federer won.  Thank heavens for YouTubeTV recordings!!

Comments

[susandennis]

when that exhibit came to seattle, they were all over the marketing - tv, social media, etc - with no mention of the location. finally the tickets went on sale and so they revealed that the seattle show was in tacoma. i actually don't even know if it really happened because i never heard another word about it.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Ah, I had never heard of it before seeing it on the news a few days ago. Reading the reviews on the website it appears that the company that does it is exceptionally mediocre. My guess is they did not even know during the Seattle gig where the tent was going to be.
What I get for leaving my bubble.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

So there’s two versions of that, here…the original thing that started in Asia and has all these moving projections, and a second cheaper knockoff version with a very similar sounding name. They both have massive marketing efforts, and neither one releases the location in advance: you buy tickets first and they’ll tell you where to go when it starts. I know for Reasons that the knockoff version hasn’t even secured their location yet. So it’s really the “pig in a poke” of art experiences.

But if you ever want to come see the real painting in the second image you posted, come up my way and I’ll get you free admission to gawk at the real thing for a while.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I feel much better now about not having opted to go see it. I like van Gogh and I've seen lots of his paintings up close and in person — I would imagine they lose something blown up huge and without being able to see the individual brush strokes.

[texasts.livejournal.com]

This is probably really pedestrian, but a few of my favorite Dr. Who episodes featured Van Gogh peripherally or prominently.

I did manage to see some of the paintings when the Big Clam sent me overseas to the Netherlands for a software startup for the better part of a month. Stunning.

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

If I go up to Cleveland, the venue is pretty straightforward: the Cleveland Museum of Art. No surprise, in any way. At least, there was plenty of publicity blether about the Museum of Art and this exhibit.

https://www.vangoghcleveland.com/

And since you get to pick your city (says that website), does this mean that the exhibit at the CMA is the knock-off, or the original? Until mid-July and possibly a bit after, my daytime hours are heavily committed, so I might not get to see this before it leaves- --IF it's worth seeing.

At least the drive is doable and the weather not too brutal.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

I decided long ago that if I ever had the chance to be in your neck of the woods I'd figure out how to get to The Barnes. Seeing something like this is kind of like listening to a digital violin. It is lovely but you are missing all the sweat and spit and horsehair and humanity. I used to live in NYC so I've seen a lot of the originals. Just that it has been a while.

[sleepybadger.livejournal.com]

THey were advertising that same program here, and I had been intrigued about it, but not enough to sign up for it, so thanks for taking one for the team ;)

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Da Nada!

[maju01.livejournal.com]

This is being advertised as coming to DC in August, with this headline: "Meet the artist like never before. Exquisite Storytelling, Cutting-Edge Technology". From your review, it doesn't sound like the show will live up to this hype. I wasn't planning to go anyway.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

That is a great metaphor, and I'm totally going to steal it for my own use!

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. Happy to contribute.