Immersive Van Gogh: Why Art is in Crisis

Rehash Podcast:

Rehash Patreon:

Follow and support the channel!

Thumbnail by Hannah Raine:

SOURCES:
Walter Benjamin, “'The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility” (1935).

Joe Coscarelli, “How Drake’s $100 Million Bet Saved the Long-Lost Art Carnival Luna Luna” The New York Times (2022).

Douglas Davis, “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction” Leonardo, Vol. 28 (5), Third Annual New York Digital Salon (1995).

Jason Farago, “Submerged in van Gogh: Would Absinthe Make the Art Grow Fonder?” The New York Times (2021).

Melissa Heikkilä, “This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it.” MIT Technology Review, (2022).

Colin Moynihan, “Why Warhol Images Are Making Museums Nervous”, New York Times (2023).

Maya Phillips, “Paintings, Projections, V.R. Starry Nights: Can We Ever Know van Gogh?” The New York Times (2021).

Gil Appel, Juliana Neelbauer, and David A. Schweidel “Generative AI Has an Intellectual Property Problem” Harvard Business Review, (2023).

[BroeyDeschanel]

debate! debate! EDIT: I think some people are missing what Benjamin meant by the "aura". He isn't placing any value on the idea - just that the aura is how the work exists in time and space, not that the work isn't "good" or something. A lot of people here are arguing that film can have an aura. In the context of Benjamin, it can't. It doesn't exist anywhere in time and space (unless you're looking at a physical reel I guess, but that's not the film itself). There's nothing wrong with not having an aura, it's just that reproduced works don't have one.

[henryglennon]

"I have enough money to buy art, therefore I am on the same level and as creative, and imaginative as the mind which originally dreamt up the art I bought, and spent decades developing the skills to share those dreams."

God, I hate tech executives.

[PaMS]

I was so disgusted by the immersive exhibit. The worst part for me was how hard they tried to convince you they had the best intentions in bringing awareness to Van Gogh's tragic life. And then the gift shop at the end sold mugs with his face where the ear disappeared when it got hot.

[MariaLCirillo]

Even museums are becoming “instagram factories” now. I was just in Paris and went to the Orsay and was appalled at how everyone was just rushing from painting to painting, snapping pictures. People actually got disgruntled when anyone got close to actually admire the art and see the details up close, “blocking the shot.” It was really frustrating and disheartening

[xiomaraa]

This reminds me of how Disney churns out remake after remake because executives are too scared to make something new. It's this capitalistic way of viewing art that banks on "marketability" and rehashing what's safe in order to maximise profits. Corporations would rather milk tried and true cash cows rather than support current artists trying to innovate. And the result is soulless every time. Because good art is not spawned from a desire to make as much money as humanly possible. It's spawned from something genuine and human and that can't be grasped when your only concern is numbers.

[hwchen]

As an art historian and someone who works in an art museum, I definitely have worries about art history programs being replaced by "visual culture" programs. I can certainly attest that a photographic reproduction of a work of art can never capture the same experience as looking at that work of art in person. I think it's also a persistent issue in the art world the tendency to want to erase the hand of all the people who work to bring exhibitions to life. Museum photography is a really fine balance and there's a lot of work that goes into even creating these images that then get uploaded onto the website to be put into the public domain.

[ZZ-qymv]

I’m an artist and went to one of these. It was definitely underwhelming and over priced. However, my 3 year old was mesmerized. It was a great way to introduce her to art and a time for us to bond. I hope it’s obvious to everyone that seeing a real Van Gogh is better than going to one of these. I think it is. But a lot of people don’t have access to that opportunity. From the perspective of a parent who currently living in a suburb, sometimes, you’re just desperate for something new to do outside of the house. The gift shop part is definitely consumerist, but that has existed in museums way before all this “tech art.” I have a huge tapestry print of Sargent’s Lily, lily, rose, because seeing that painting in real like was so impactful to me. Having the print is a reminder of a memory, rather than pretending I own the real thing. I suppose I’m defending the concept of these Van Gogh projection show, but not the full execution. It needed a couple of real paintings of his as part of the experience.

[izaiahdb]

i think a big issue around this that i've seen almost no discussion of is the shift in language to talk about "consuming" i never heard anyone speak like that until the early 2000s, and it was businesspeople who started it. the first time i remember hearing that framing was the netflix ceo talking about how his company allowed people to have more control in how they consume movies, and it made me do a double-take. it commodifies everything and makes it all disposable. once you've consumed that van gogh, you're done with it. on to the next thing. my relationship to art is not one of consumption - there are works of art i've been thinking about for more than 3 decades at this point. i understand that language evolves, and there's probably no turning back now, but it's worth engaging with how that evolution happens and what the effects are. we're devaluing artists because we've spent the last 2+ decades devaluing art.

[benzur]

So it’s not art that is in crisis, it is artists. Not due this or that circumstance, but due to art being reduced to nothing but a commodity, and commodities being trapped in the chain of maximal profit at minimal costs, viewing every reduceable investment as an easy target to cut costs at

[isabellarrrrr]

I went to one of these "experiences" back in 2019 with a friend and as soon as we left we started mumbling about our dissatisfaction with the presentation, the overpowering music and the speed of the videos leaving us dumbfounded and perplexed. Most of all, I was angry - I didn't learn nothing new about Van Gogh, I didn't fell entertained or moved, I didn't feel anything at all, except from, well, harsh dissappointment. The exhibition had the original "Bedroom in Arles" exposed before the giant illuminated rooms, and the striking tiny size of it, the simplicity of the subject made me stop and just, look at it for a good 20 minutes - while the nearby classical music blared from the speakers, the painting screamed nothing. It was just there, in its silence.

I am studying Art History and while I loathe the centuries-long, ever-recurring "But then what even IS art?" question, because to me it isn't supposed to have just one answer and one answer only, I think I can say, "It's just there." Just like me and my other friend were there to see it. Just like a cat, or a river. It is there, art, and it's there in a specific, unique way - it's on the marble of the 16th-century sculpture as it is in the long piercing gaze of Marina Abramovic in her performance "The Artist is Present".


With the manipulation and artifical expansion of well known masterpieces, art isn't there - art was there, as we can recognize the original blueprint, but, to me, it's gone. There's only a whiff of the subtlety, the tecnique, the creative output of the author. I don't think it's a matter of art knowledge; it's a matter of humanity. We, as humans, know art when we see it, just like we recognize one another. AI doesn't recognize, it just selects and reproduces.

I don't really know where I was going with this comment, but it's a matter I am very fond of and interested in. I am not completely against AI, I think it works great in IT and science and I think it's definitely too soon to have a clear understanding of what are its limits. And instead of asking myself, "Should we use AI in art? Should we call entirely computer-produced images art?" what I am more interested in is, "Why are we even using AI in art? What do we want to achieve, what do we want to see? Why do we need bigger, better, expanded images than the one we already have?"

Why are we digitally expanding the "Bedroom in Arles", while the exact point of it it's its tiny insignificance?

[MrCharliebush]

Every now and then on twitter or elsewhere on the internet, there's a debate that erupts with Rothko's work at the center about the whole "i could do that if i REALLY wanted to, why's it hanging at the Met??" but these people give themselves away because they've only ever seen photographs of his paintings. i saw one of his paintings in person recently and it literally stopped me in my tracks. there's an indescribable quality to them that just gets totally lost when all you see is a reproduction. and of course, it's a shame that not everyone interested in art gets to go to the Moma, but there are art museums and galleries in every city.

[annj]

I don’t know quite how this fits into this conversation but I think the 2017 movie Loving Vincent is an interesting and important comparison to how an artists work can be reproduced for the masses in a new form of art-a movie without feeling quite so exploitative and far from the artists original intentions and actual life. I highly recommend that movie. It is entirely hand painted in Van Goghs style, based on scenes he painted, that focuses on his life and his relationship with his brother. I think it provides a more “immersive experience” to his artwork while still connecting the viewer to his life, focusing on the art as his work and not just a pretty aesthetic backdrop. There are certainly still conversations to be had about co-opting his style and the distribution of his work beyond his actually paintings but it is worth a watch. Also I obviously have to give credit to this movie for employing actual incredibly skilled artists and animators. Highly highly recommend this movie it’s incredibly impressive, and also it’s not gonna cost you $35 a head to see. Love the video btw, so glad you covered it, it’s been so odd to me to see how widespread and popular these types of shows have become.

[ninanasca]

i loved my trip to a van gogh immersive experience but i think thats because i loved seeing these things in some way in real life- i have never seen an actual van gogh despite my love for him for my whole life. i have read his letters with his brother and love everything about his life and just loved to see these things and the expansion of them. i totally see the fact that it is a poor substitute for actual art and his gorgeous paintings but it was wonderful to be able to see it in any way even if it was a poor representation and these short flashes with a forced perspective

[rebeccag]

Based on the experience of others, it sounds like there's a variety of ways the Van Gogh immersive exhibits are presented. I recently went to one in DC that had several rooms showing a huge number of pieces on the wall with their normal shape and size, a significant amount of information in terms of the history of the pieces and Van Gogh's life, and then the large final room. It wasn't too crowded, so we could go in whenever we wanted. There was no herding, no crowding in the room, we could stay as long as we wanted. The music and quotes were lovely and didn't seem like they had an agenda, and although no substitute for the original pieces, I really enjoyed seeing the art in such an immersive, unique way. I am am an art history major and a lot of the criticisms are valid, but I had a positive experience and others seemed to as well. We were all in awe, particularly the children. And I do think it's admirable to have more people be able to see these pieces.

[julieduncan]

Very interesting. It’s a complicated issue. All I know is that, for me personally, an “immersive experience” could never bring me to tears, but standing in front of an original Van Gogh painting and seeing his actual brushstrokes was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life.

[_weasel]

I had the opportunity to see a large Van Gogh exhibit in an actual art museum (Van Gogh in America, Detroit Institute of Arts) last winter. It was so meaningful to me. I've always loved Van Gogh's paintings. I really treasured the amount of time I could look at his actual brushstrokes, his use of color, his choice of framing and focus. To see so many works of art from one artist, you can kind of imagine what their sensibilities might have been. You get a sense of their personality or "soul" as you said in the video. I look at these "Immersive" exhibits and feel a pit in my stomach. Van Gogh is a treasure. His works are treasures. They are warping it and turning it into something fast and cheap. I don't know what to call it, but again and again I see this Instagramification of art. It's almost sacrilegious, the disregard and callousness shown to the real artistry of Van Gogh. It feels unholy.

[poetrylosers]

“And if the argument for art without the artist is that it’s cheap, well then we have a pretty big problem on our hands… don’t we?” Damn. Freire trying to educate me about all that is dehumanizing and I hadn’t even considered what was happening to art. Thanks for the video.

[maggyfrog]

art is too human for it to ever be divorced from the artist. art evolved as humans evolved, and it just doesn't seem like it will ever be a "stand-alone" thing that exists by itself without the artist creating it. in fact, the very notion of it not being man-made makes it lose value. it's not just the brand of an artist that gives it value, but the fact that it's a human creation that allows for human expression and interpretation.

[wings]

I went to one of these exhibitions, and by far my favourite part was after the immersion room was a room where they provided colouring pages of a bunch of Van Gogh's works and oil pastels. I felt far more "immersed" in the art while messily colouring in with a group of strangers, studying his pieces for inspiration, than in the immersion room.

Actually everything besides the immersion room was, I think, far better than the ones I'm reading about in these comments; the first part was a gallery section, with big big sections of writing, very respectfully explaining Van Gogh's life and details about certain paintings and his inspirations, interspersed with some reproductions of his paintings and videos explaining some critique of Starry Night.

Between that and the colouring in room, the immersion room just felt like indulging their gimmick. It was undoubtedly the main event, but had far less value than the rest of the exhibit.

[nanabun]

I wanted to go but the tickets were ridiculous at 28 euros even for a student, so instead I booked a 3 day trip to Amsterdam to look at actual Van Gogh paintings and it was amazing. The extra money I spent was worth it for the culture and fun I had visiting a country I had previously never been to