Steve_Bamlett_blog

Van Gogh in the Round: Reflection : https://www.vangoghexpo.co.uk/york/ to book and more information.

I saw this tonight at about 4 p.m. Sitting in a deck chair in the nave of the old church, a looped presentation occurs all round you. It’s even on the floor beneath you and all created by projected moving light.

There is some information to be had about Van Gogh’s ideas about his art in the commentary but the experience is not at all like being absorbed by the work of painting. It is rather more an artefact of light projection technology. It is being immersed in the flow of colours where issues of flow and overlap matter more than seeing colours on a static and flat canvas where motion is essentially an illusion of form, line and colour contrast.

The sway of trees, or corn, the flight of swallows and of crows, highly differentiated, the growth at magical pace fitted to both the real architecture of St Mary’s and illusory projections of that architecture into depth effects, and the fall and flow of water, especially when that happens on the floor to the side and appearing to flow under you. That, especially in the context of a dynamic starry night was truly immersive. So was the fall of rain effects.

However, I was less interested in the framed artworks that appeared under each arch. In these the picture plane displayed motion and depth, and changing lights mimetic of the scene represented. Hence, they were so unlike Van Gogh I felt. In his work, motion needs to play against the actual static nature of the painted forms. Here, picture flows into picture, sometimes by flowing one picture over another or letting a second picture burst out and emerge from within another picture. Often the flow of a single colour changed forms. It is an art of visible metamorphosis not of contemplative imaginative motion.

A favourite sequence however was the motion of the almond branches and blossom, accompanied by the fall of petals – actually onto you in the form of light flowing over you.

The whole sequence is on a loop lasting 35 minutes but you can stay longer and move about if you prefer. But don’t miss the additional elements. A half-relief vase in a flat screen background is filled, in the same flowing manner as the events in the nave, with all the flower types known to Van Gogh – iris, sunflower and so on.

What you shouldn’t miss is the 3-D 360-degree virtual reality show (in the same room you can draw or colour in your own Van Gogh and project it for all to see).

The virtual reality experience costs an extra £3 but is more than worth it. Called ‘A Day at Arles’, you sit on a bar stool that can revolve and you look continually around you, back from whence you came, forward to the side or up to the sky through trees. It narrates a ‘Day in Arles’ and introduces animals and roguish peasant lads (perhaps a stereotype too many there) as it walks through scenes that get related to Van Gogh’s work – although I missed Les Alyscamps (which isn’t to say it wasn’t there and misrecognised by me).

I longed to see both factory and classical ruins – amongst the throng of a visual feast. But you will enjoy this feast. It is about the digital and kinetic light art that can present it to you rather than the painting and drawing of Van Gogh but, after all, there are so other ways of getting the latter – exhibitions, books and the rest.

However take with a pinch of salt the promise of the website. It is not like the hackneyed wish to ‘step into a painting’ : after all we can’t really imagine such a possibility. Once we stepped in, the painting would cease to exist. Another art will take its place.

See https://www.vangoghexpo.co.uk/york/