Shall We Gogh See Van Gogh?

Photo taken by author outside of the Pittsburgh Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit on the North Side

Everyone has heard of Vincent Van Gogh, one of the world’s greatest artists, specifically painters. His work is ingrained in our brains from our first art classes in elementary school. I remember having to make a little version of “A Starry Night” when we were learning about his art style. It was nowhere near close like the actual painting, but it definitely was nowhere near close as the Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit. Check out an article about the exhibit here: https://triblive.com/aande/museums/2nd-immersive-art-exhibit-coming-to-north-side/.

I remember my mom seeing an ad on Facebook about this exhibit about a year ago, advertising the immersive exhibit at a location in Pittsburgh, where I would be moving to college. At the height of the pandemic, she was too afraid to purchase tickets, but the ad resurfaced about a month before I headed to Point Park. My mom knows how much I love Van Gogh’s work, so much so that she bought me a lanyard to hold my keys when I got my license with his sunflower painting on it.

We again passed at the tickets, not knowing exactly how my schedule would be, and at the time, the only options for visits were at 10 o’clock at night, which is definitely not something my mom wanted to do that late in the North Shore, where the exhibit would be taking place in Pittsburgh.

Fast forward a few months, it is now December; the end of the semester is near. After a hard four months of studying, my friends and I wanted to treat ourselves to something nice, whether a sweater we had saved in our Amazon cart for months or a nice meal, but my friend Kass and I had been wishing for something different.

The Port Authority buses display a vast array of ads, but the majority of them had been advertising the Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit. Everywhere we looked, there was another bus ad. It was driving my friend Kass and I, both huge Van Gogh fans, crazy because we wanted to save our money during the semester, but we decided to treat ourselves at the end of it.

In the thirty degree weather, which rarely happens anymore in Pennsylvania in December, we took the twenty-eight minute walk from campus in stride, bursting with excitement, eager to see Van Gogh’s work in a different way.

"A Starry Night" comes to life through the wall covering screens

Photo taken by author

Exhibit brings the Pittsburgh spirit with a Steelers' helmet covered in Van Gogh's staple of sunflowers

Photo taken by author

We come up to what seems like a collapsable, yet large and sturdy blue tent and are greeted with a metal detector. After passing, we got our coats taken and put into a coat room, which caused Kass and I to glance at one another in awe, as no one has ever checked our coats before.

“It’s so fancy,” I recall Kass saying. “And we’re here in jeans and Vans.”

We were guided to an open room with benches and walls covered in screens, almost like a movie theater was plastered on all four walls, with benches facing each so not everyone has to face the same screen.

The room transformed into a series of live, moving paintings. Classical music filled the light changing room, as Van Gogh’s paintings came to life, stroke by stroke. Each one of his most famous paintings, including my two favorites the starry night and the sunflowers, became animated, and it felt like I could take a step forward and fall into the world created in the painting.

In a quick twenty minutes, the show was over, but our excitement was not. We basically skipped back to campus, having spent the best fifty bucks on something in a long time.

Want to learn more? Visit the exhibit's website here: https://www.vangoghpittsburgh.com/.