That is just one of the interactive, immersive exhibit experiences you will find at the Van Gogh - The Exhibit, which is set up alongside Herzliya Marina, adjacent to the Arena Mall.
By SHANNA FULDTHE ‘VAN GOGH ALIVE’ exhibit features a variety of artist’s paintings and a dazzling 3-D virtual reality experience.(photo credit: IVANOV CHRISTINE)
You could sit in front of the vase for hours letting your mind run as fast as the 30-projected flower images from a selection of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings. Each piece danced out of the ceramic vase mounted to the wall, and melted away as the next set of indigo or crimson perennials morphed into view.That is just one of the interactive, immersive exhibit experiences you will find at the Van Gogh - The Exhibit which is set up alongside Herzliya Marina, adjacent to the Arena Mall.Van Gogh was too poor to pay models, so red poppies, blue corn flowers and yellow chrysanthemums became as important to him as a naked woman. And of course, sunflowers – for which he painted 12 canvas versions, might as well have been the sun for him on many of his down days. The artist is thought to have struggled through mental disabilities and lived off money he borrowed from his brother, who supported his art career. Van Gogh sold just one painting during his lifetime for 400 francs in 1890 (despite the fact his brother was actually an art dealer).The exhibit did an excellent job of bringing some of the 900 paintings he created during his time as an artist to life. Van Gogh began painting at 27 and died at 37. Though Van Gogh got no recognition while alive, it seems as though practice really does make perfect. The artist created around two paintings per week and 130 years later his works are super-imposed across full wall spaces in a tented exhibit in a little beach town in the Middle East.Sitting down in front of the exhibits took the images from basic to unbelievable. Allow yourself time to get lost in the moving images and colors. Paired with the music and recordings, the exhibit offers an opportunity to turn your brain off and melt into the moment.The show makes its way to Israel from Europe. Previously it showed in Brussels, Naples, York in the UK, at the Beijing National Museum and the Regional Museum in Hangzhou, China. One of the show producers, Mario Ilcampo was born to Italian parents, grew up in Montreal and has lived in Belgium for the past 11 years. He told The Jerusalem Post that while people in most countries go to see art on weekends, he finds Israelis are always making time to experience culture even in the middle of the work week.“People go out a lot in Israel. It’s not a sedentary society. I really noticed that people go out a lot and live. They socialize a lot. This was one of the things for me that I felt was reassuring as to why the exhibit would work,” Ilcampo explained.The exhibit includes a must-see virtual reality tour in which viewers wait on line (and there was quite the queue on Friday afternoon), strap on Oculus goggles and are guided through a virtual, colorful depiction of Van Gogh’s life. At each stop, you see a virtual reality image of a scene from Van Gogh’s life – whether two peasants laying in hay or a bridge over a waterway. Then a virtual frame drops down, tightened and morphing the scene into a mimic of one of Van Gogh’s original paintings – in virtual reality of course. With the goggles, the user can see a representation of Van Gogh’s home and the countryside which inspired much of his works. The virtual reality truly was a journey and will serve as a memorable part of the exhibit experience.“Everywhere we use tech is not [just] for tech sake. It’s that the tech is augmenting the experience,” Ilcampo explained. “I think people should come without a timetable. And then you can enjoy the whole experience.”He’s not wrong. Outside of the virtual reality experience and the superimposed digital images of the flowers, there is a room meant for getting lost in Van Gogh. The enormous space, inhabited by seniors, children, adolescents and young people was silent while jaws dropped and eyes widened. A 30-minute film ran using the white walls of the exhibit space as the canvas. Digital images of Van Gogh’s work poured over the walls at unimaginable sizes. And because Van Gogh is known for having painted the same scenes over and over again, curators played with that, showing the three or more paintings Van Gogh made of the same subject one after another and in the same spot. The moving images highlighted the slight differences in the paintings, whether it be the size of a woman’s nose or the chair placement in a painting of his bedroom. Many of these repetitive works include the many self portraits Van Gogh crafted before the concept of the modern selfie was ever born. While sitting in this part of the exhibit, you’ll find nearly every inch of the walls were covered in digital paintings. Everywhere you looked, Van Gogh’s work was there. And then at the end of the film, clouds roll in and wash it all away. Then the film repeats itself.While tickets are a whopping 150 NIS or so, artwork and souvenirs were reasonably priced. If you’re interested in a print, you can bring home a little piece of Van Gogh (not his ear, though) for between 100 and 250 NIS. Van Gogh is infamous for having sliced off his ear during an argument with another artist with whom he had a close relationship. And many believe he sent it to his prostitute girlfriend as a token of his affection.Whether you’re an art connoisseur or not, the Van Gogh exhibit will take you somewhere else for the entire duration of your stay. The show runs every day until April 18, 2020.
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