A spectacular cultural event in the best city in the world!
Last night commenced the highly anticipated and effectively publicised – thanks to a highly successful PR campaign by Bill Elms Productions – official opening and UK Premiere of the Beyond Van Gogh – The Immersive Exhibition at Liverpool’s Exhibition Centre in The King’s and Albert Dock complex.
This cultural experience was highly engaging and evocatively emotive for all those in attendance. Following a selection of delicious canapés, locally sourced and employing the skills of an excellent local front of house team, The Lord Mayor of Liverpool commenced proceedings with the opening speech to dignitaries, press, and guests from local businesses alongside a plethora of local celebrities. All were delighted to be in attendance for this spectacular event, which could simply be described as a cultural extravaganza of epic proportions. Who hasn’t heard of Vincent Van Gogh and his amazing artwork? Exactly! Therefore everyone wanted to be at this UK premiere and bear witness to how this exhibition could bring this amazing artist’s work to life in a modern and relevant way to a new generation whilst retaining the love from the classic art appreciators, enthusiasts, and lovers.
The team at Annerin Productions and Paquin Entertainment Group succeeded in making this an exciting immersive experience – making you feel like you were part of the art, via projections of over 300 pieces of the master’s paintings cast in splendour onto the 40,000 sq ft walls and the floor, and not just a passive spectator.
This experience was the crescendo as initially, the visitors were taken on a narrative journey of Vincent Van Gogh’s troubled life from darkness to light, accessing his art via his emotionally turbulent world; understanding the feelings of the artist behind his art and why at certain stages he created the work he did. This emotive journey sheds clarity on the buttress of his feelings of despair, vivid dreams, often depressive thoughts; low self-esteem and self-worth and complete anguish. Visitors are also able to read extracts of letters sent from Vincent to his younger brother Theo, expressing his enhanced fear of loneliness before, during, and after his self-imposed period of exile in an asylum – when many of his more well-known paintings were created. The ambience was further set by a stirring symphonic score evoking immense feelings of sadness towards one of the most influential artists the world has ever known.
This was an informative and unforgettable multimedia experience that is suitable for all ages. The cutting-edge technology liberates the original two-dimensional paintings, including Van Gogh’s more well-known pieces: Starry Night, Sunflowers, and Terrace of a Café at Night, plus a selection of his self-portraits, to transcend into three-dimensional, fully immersive scenes that swirl and flow with colour and movement – exhilarating in every sense. Even if you are familiar with Van Gogh’s incredible paintings yet know little about his life, I implore you to visit this exhibition before it ends its run in Liverpool.
Currently, over 30,000 pre-sale tickets have already been purchased for what will be the cultural event in Liverpool’s 2024 calendar. This will undoubtedly be a popular attraction and something that people will be talking positively about for years to come. I do not want you to miss out on this masterpiece of an exhibition.
LISTINGS INFORMATION FOR BEYOND VAN GOGH
VENUE: Exhibition Centre Liverpool, King’s Dock, Liverpool, L3 4FP.
DATE: Thursday, 27 June – Wednesday, 24 July 2024
TIME: 10am-8pm Monday-Friday & Sunday / 9am-8pm Saturday (special yoga session Saturday mornings)
PRICE:
Tickets can be booked via: www.exhibitioncentreliverpool.com/whats-on/beyond-van-gogh
Following the UK premiere launch in Liverpool, from 27 June to 24 July, it will open at Glasgow’s Scottish Event Campus on 11 July and at the Birmingham NEC on 1 August.
About Vincent Van Gogh:
Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh was born to a Protestant minister and his wife in Zundert, in the Netherlands, in 1853 and started his career as an art dealer, working in London and Paris.
He also worked as a schoolteacher in Ramsgate and London, a bookseller, and a lay preacher in a Belgian mining community, before in 1880 his younger brother Theo suggested he concentrate on art.
Van Gogh quickly became prolific, creating more than 2,000 artworks over the course of a single decade including 860 paintings – among them landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits. Many of them were painted in the final two years of his life, when he lived in Provence, and include some of his most famous works, among them The Starry Night, Irises, Café Terrace at Night, Bedroom in Arles, and Almond Blossoms.
But dogged by mental health problems, in 1889 he cut off his left ear, and the following year – aged 37 – he took his own life.
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