A Beijing shopping mall is the location of the world premiere of an art exhibit that takes visitors on a journey through the life of the renowned Dutch artist.
ADVERTISEMENTVincent Van Gogh has come to China.
A five-year tour that started this weekend in Beijing, Meet Vincent Van Gogh: Experience a journey through his life,
is a multisensory exhibition of the Dutch painter’s life and masterpieces.
The interactive show offers visitors the chance to learn about the artist while literally walking through oversized, life-like reproductions of his paintings, screened in digital colour.
The exhibition has been created by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Axel Ruger, director, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam:
“The works from the collection are very fragile; we cannot really lend them all that much. So we were looking for another way to present Vincent Van Gogh, and we know that there is a big and growing interest on Vincent Van Gogh here in this country.”
Guided by quotations from more than 800 personal letters between Van Gogh and his brother Theo, visitors can listen to the wind from ‘The Harvest’ and also smell the straw.
They can even take a nap on the artist’s bed.
Willem Van Gogh, advisor to the board of the Van Gogh Museum: “I think you learn a lot about his life, and you learn about his hope, his despair, his inspiration – so important for an artist – his friendships, and I think it’s as close as you can get to the person Vincent Van Gogh was as an artist.”
Set up outside a shopping mall in northwestern Beijing, the exhibition runs through September 16.
It will also visit Shanghai, Hainan Island and Macau.
