A life-size recreation of Bedroom in Arles, part of Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience at Skylight on Vesey Street in New York, June 5, 2021. Two immersive van Gogh exhibitions make a critic reflect on her encounters with his paintings and question what it means to have an intimate connection with an artist. Sam Youkilis/The New York Times.
by Maya Phillips
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- In 2017, I took a trip to Paris, where I greedily took in as much art as I could. In one of the cavernous chambers of the ornate Musée dOrsay was the Vincent van Gogh exhibition, his framed works (Starry Night Over the Rhône, Bedroom in Arles, The Church at Auvers, a number of his self-portraits) set against a brazen sapphire background rather than the usual chaste white museum walls. Ive had a poster of Starry Night, gifted to me by a college friend, since my undergraduate dorm days. It hangs framed in my bedroom today. At Musée dOrsay, I stared at his restless skies and fields, stood for long stretches in front of his self-portraits, rooted in place by the depth of his gaze. And I cried suddenly, violently. I rushed out. I had never before had such a fierce reaction to a painting, and I have never again since. What does it mean to build intimacy with an artist even one separated by over a century of histo ... More