If you are sick of the virus and all the controversy surrounding it. If you believe the predictions that this winter will be of the "old fashioned" variety with lots of snow and cold. And you will be one of the hearty souls that will be shoveling with the rest of it. You deserve a day's time-out that you'll remember and ponder for a long while.
In 2019, an Immersion Van Gogh Experience opened in Paris to packed crowds, and it was extended for over a year.
This same Experience is currently showing in over 19 cities throughout the U.S. In Canada and in Dubai, UAE. Happily, for us, our own Minneapolis is hosting the show, being held over for the second time until November 19.
Even if you don't know a thing about the artist Vincent Van Gogh, after you've spent 35 minutes emerged in the 14 ever-moving segments of his short 10-year painting career, you'll feel like you've been inside his head. You see just some of his 900 works through his eyes as he paints.
Scenes morph from one painting to the next as classical music swells around you in this old industrial building in the North Minneapolis Art District whose extensive entryway walls, nooks, and crannies were all expertly painted to reflect the era.
Massimilano Siccardi and Luca Longobardi spent 30 years developing this unique visual technique that has made Immersion Van Gogh the number one selling show globally. This visual affront follows his work with his early paintings of the local Dutch people living their daily lives to wild and honest scenes of potato pickers and windmills and fields.
From his birth in the Netherlands in 1853, we follow him through his ten-year painting career, which began in earnest after the death of his father and the suicide of his girlfriend.
His move to Paris celebrated his most glorious period and his time of deepest despair exacerbated by his heavy drinking, which then led to his delirium.
It was shortly after he threatened another artist with a knife that he cut off his own ear and then signed himself into the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum for a year at the age of 36. He spent the following year after his release painting his final picture, which he titled Starry Nights, after which he shot himself in the chest, taking a day to die.
If you are planning to go, it doesn't hurt to download the Van Gogh app for a plethora of helpful information, and if you're not familiar with the Northeast side of Minneapolis, take some sort of device that will get you to the Lighthouse venue at 1515 Central Ave. Parking is $10, and here they've got you over a barrel because there is no street parking anywhere close.
Once you're inside, the viewing begins at 11a, and there are two rooms to watch the show, each with benches and lighted pod circles on the floor for those who plan to sit there and are still capable of getting up off the floor.
Columns of floor-to-ceiling mirrors enhance the experience, and when it's over for you, you can stay through another showing if you like, coming and going at will. Naturally, there's a huge gift shop before you exit, and the items are expensive but so clever. Afterward, ethnic restaurants are abounding throughout the neighborhood. Take your phone for information and directions, you will definitely need it.
Tickets are going fast, so don't dawdle when making up your mind. Immersion Van Gogh are your Google search words, and it will answer all your questions, especially the availability of tickets.
You won't regret it. Gogh!
Last Update: Sep 19, 2021 1:33 pm CDT
