Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Late pandemic interlude ...

Our household celebrated vaccination and the coming of spring by visiting the Immersive Van Gogh show yesterday. This expressionist experience is definitely worth sampling if you have a chance. It's continuing in San Francisco through early September in the artfully converted Honda dealership at South Van Ness and Market.

The combination of images, movement, and sound in a cavernous setting is an art medium just coming into its own. I'm sure many efforts in the form will fall short; we saw one such flop at the Guggenheim in Bilbao a couple of years ago. But this successor to the light shows of my youth was very successful.

Some thoughts:

• the creators didn't overdo it. So much pure power is inherent in projecting and morphing powerful images, but this is restrained, elegant.

 
 
• They didn't shrink from the dark side of the suffering painter's vision. This is not all light, stars, and sunflowers.

• For all its visual power, the music makes the show. The soundtrack could have been rousing and overpowering; but like the entirety of the exhibit, it was restrained, despite including a dramatic eruption from the French chanteuse Edith Piaf.

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