Immersive Van Gogh Digital Art Shows Coming to 14 U.S. Cities

© Photo by Michael Brosilow
Immersive Van Gogh Digital Art Shows Coming to 13 U.S. Cities


Photo by Michael Brosilow “Immersive Van Gogh” opened in Chicago on February 11, and tickets are sold out through April.
Over the past few years, immersive digital art museums have drawn crowds everywhere from Tokyo to Paris to Bordeaux. (There was even a drive-in exhibit in Toronto last year.) Now, people in the United States finally get to enjoy this 360-degree experience set to music with not one, but five traveling shows featuring the work of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. While each of the shows is distinct, they are similar in that they place visitors in the middle of large-scale moving images that are projected onto the walls, ceilings, and floors in a large gallery or warehouse space. 

Exhibits in Chicago, San Francisco, and St. Petersburg, Florida, are already open, while ticket sales have started—and are already selling out—for experiences in Los Angeles and New York opening later this spring. Find out more about where each show is happening, how they differ (slightly), and how to get tickets before they’re gone:

1. Immersive Van Gogh

Created and run by the same team behind Atelier des Lumières in Paris (aka the digital art show featured in Netflix’s Emily in Paris), Immersive Van Gogh features more than 500,000 cubic feet of projections and lasts one hour. Expect to see iconic van Gogh works including The Potato Eaters (1885), Starry Night (1889), Sunflowers (1888), and The Bedroom (1889). The large-scale digital animations of the Dutch painter’s work are set to original songs composed by Italian multimedia composer Luca Longobardi.

The show is currently open in Chicago and San Francisco, with upcoming events in Los Angeles and New York in the next few months. In a review in the Chicago Tribune, arts reporter Steve Johnson likened it to an “updated version” of those 1970s Pink Floyd laser light shows at a planetarium.

“But instead of the borderline skeezy rock culture undertones of a Floyd show, making it about an artist . . . puts a veneer of high culture on the whole thing,” Johnson wrote. “Tonight’s head trip is being sponsored by your college’s core curriculum requirement in humanities and the arts.”

Tickets are sold by timed entry and are going quickly (the L.A. show is sold out through the end of September 2021 already). Social distancing circles are projected on the floor of the gallery to give guests their own space during their visit.

Chicago

When: February 11–September 6, 2021Where: Lighthouse ArtSpace at Germania ClubBuy Tickets: Prices start at $40 ($25 for children 16 or younger), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, vangoghchicago.com.

San Francisco

When: March 18–September 6, 2021Where: SVN West San Francisco (formerly the Fillmore West)Buy Tickets: Prices start at $40 ($25 for children 16 or younger), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, vangoghsf.com. 

Los Angeles

When: May 27, 2021–January 2, 2022Where: Secret LA location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $40 ($25 for children 16 or younger), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, vangoghla.com. 

New York City

When: June 10–September 6, 2021Where: Secret NYC location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $40 ($25 for children 16 or younger), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, vangoghnyc.com.

2. Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience

Featuring 20,000 square feet of projections, Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience is run in partnership with two immersive experience companies: Exhibition Hub, which has produced exhibitions everywhere from Europe to America and Asia, and Fever, which is known for creating the Stranger Things: The Drive-Into Experience in Los Angeles.

This digital art show features similar van Gogh masterpieces set to music, and it takes about 60 to 75 minutes to experience in full. VIP Access also enables visitors to experience an additional virtual reality component of the exhibition, a 10-minute journey through a day in van Gogh’s life that places you in the center of his most personal paintings. (Equipment will be disinfected after each use.)

Timed-entry tickets are on sale currently for all eight U.S. cities the show is traveling to in 2021. Tickets will be limited to guarantee space for social distancing.

Atlanta

When: May 19–August 1, 2021Where: Pullman Yards, Building 1Buy Tickets: Prices start at $32 ($19 for children 12 or younger, $21 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

New York City

When: June 26–September 26, 2021Where: Secret NYC location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $36 ($20 for children 12 or younger, $22 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

Boston

When: September 24, 2021–January 2, 2022Where: Secret Boston location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $36 ($20 for children 12 or younger, $25 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

Dallas

When: August 30–December 12, 2021Where: Secret Dallas location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $36 ($20 for children 12 or younger, $25 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

Philadelphia

When: August 12–November 21, 2021Where: Secret Philadelphia location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $35 ($20 for children 12 or younger, $25 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

Houston

When: October 14, 2021–January 23, 2022Where: Secret Houston location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $35 ($20 for children 12 or younger, $25 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

Washington, D.C.

When: July 23–November 14, 2021Where: Secret D.C. location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $36 ($20 for children 12 or younger, $25 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

Miami

When: May 8–August 30, 2021Where: Secret Miami location, to be announced soonBuy Tickets: Prices start at $35 ($20 for children 12 or younger, $25 for military, seniors 65 and older, and students 13 to 26), with VIP and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, feverup.com.

3. Van Gogh Alive

Created by the Melbourne, Australia–based Grande Experiences, the traveling Van Gogh Alive show has been exhibited everywhere from New Zealand to Mexico. This 40-minute show features 3,000 moving van Gogh images—including Sunflowers (1888) and Starry Night (1889)—set to a classical music score.

After its stint at the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida—which was just extended through June 13—it will head to the Midwest, where it will be the inaugural show at the Lume Indianapolis, the first permanent digital art exhibit space in the United States. Later this fall, it will open at George W. Vanderbilt’s historic Biltmore house in Asheville and run through the Christmas season and into 2022.

St. Petersburg, Florida

When: November 21, 2020–June 13, 2021Where: The Dalí MuseumBuy Tickets: Prices start at $25 ($10 for children 6-12), thedali.org.

Indianapolis

When: June 2021–TBDWhere: The Lume Indianapolis at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at NewfieldsBuy Tickets: Ticket sale dates have yet to be announced. For more information, visit discovernewfields.org/lume.

Asheville, North Carolina

When: November 5, 2021–March 5, 2022

Where: The Biltmore

Buy Tickets: Tickets with required reservations will be available later this year and will be included with regular daytime admission to the Biltmore House via biltmore.com.

4. Beyond Van Gogh: An Immersive Experience

Created by French Canadian creative director Mathieu St-Arnaud and the team at the Montreal-based Normal Studio, Beyond Van Gogh is opening this spring at Miami’s Ice Palace Studios, just south of the Wynwood Arts District. This exhibit features voice-overs of van Gogh’s words set to a symphonic score to drive the narrative of the show as it progresses through 300 of his masterpieces including Starry Night, Sunflowers, and Café Terrace at Night.

Miami

When: April 15–July 11, 2021Where: Ice Palace StudiosBuy Tickets: Prices start at $37 ($24 for children 5–15), vangoghmiami.com.

5. Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition

Imagine Van Gogh is the creation of French artistic directors Annabelle Mauger and Julien Baron, who have worked on other immersive shows at the digital art museum in Les Baux-de-Provence, France. After stints in Vancouver and Edmonton, Canada, Imagine Van Gogh will come to the United States in December for a two-month show in Boston’s South End, featuring 200 van Gogh paintings set to the music of Saint-Saëns, Mozart, and Bach.

Boston

When: December 21, 2021–February 20, 2022Where: SoWa Power StationBuy Tickets: Prices start at $40 ($35 for children 6–10), with group and flexible tickets available in addition to the standard timed ticket options, boston.imagine-vangogh.com.

This article was originally published on March 2, 2021; it was updated on April 1, 2021, with additional information.

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