Artwork Museums vs. Immersives: Do You Need to See a Van Gogh or Be in One?

The dilemma is that museums—even these providing free admission—are struggling to rebuild their audiences amid the pandemic, so it irks that multisensory artwork occasions are promoting out exhibits even when tickets rival rock concert events, topping $100.

“These multisensory experiences should not artwork—they’re a type of leisure,” mentioned Max Hollein, director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, the place attendance at the moment hovers round half the museum’s pre-pandemic ranges. “We’re keeping track of these exhibits, however we don’t have to emulate them.”

In Texas, producers of “Van Gogh: The Immersive Expertise” mentioned their present has bought 100,000 tickets since October. Examine that to the close by Dallas Museum of Artwork, the place attendance for your complete 12 months is just anticipated to cross 300,000 folks—roughly a 3rd of its pre-pandemic ranges. Sarcastically, the Dallas museum is getting a slight bump in foot visitors because of its personal Van Gogh exhibit of olive groves, the end result of 9 years of curatorial analysis.

Cindy Parrish, who works for a commodities-trading agency in Dallas, considers herself a Van Gogh fan. However as a substitute of hitting up the museum, she lately paid $50 twice to see one of many Van Gogh immersives positioned at a ballpark in close by Arlington.

“You stroll in and go, ‘Oh wow!’” she mentioned. “That is extra than simply strolling as much as a portray—you are feeling such as you’re in a single.”

Producers of immersive exhibits say that their recognition proves youthful audiences wish to be wowed by artwork at an engulfing scale, as seen in an episode of the favored

Netflix

present “Emily in Paris.” However the shake-up is spooking conventional museums which have lengthy assumed that folks would moderately stand in entrance of an precise masterpiece than watch a projection of the identical, regardless of how huge.

At Ohio’s Columbus Museum of Artwork, the place a serious present about Van Gogh’s work opened final month, Government Director

Nannette Maciejunes

mentioned some guests thought the “Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit” was opening contained in the museum, moderately than at a former furnishings retailer. Billboards for the immersive present learn, “It’s secure to Gogh.”

“It was awkward,” Ms. Maciejunes mentioned. “Everyone in Columbus is speaking about Van Gogh proper now, they usually both imply us or them. However their expertise is common tradition about artwork, and ours is an exhibition of artwork.”

Such high-low distinctions have lengthy existed in cultural circles, however museums ought to begin relating to immersive exhibits as artistic endeavors themselves moderately than threats, mentioned Vince Kadlubek, co-founder and director of Meow Wolf, a New Mexico-based artwork collective that began experimenting with immersive artwork areas greater than a decade in the past. Meow Wolf interactive reveals in Santa Fe, Las Vegas and Denver are on observe to collectively get 1.5 million guests this 12 months, Mr. Kadlubek mentioned.

“If most of the people likes a factor, it’s leisure,” he mentioned, “and that’s seen as a unclean phrase to individuals who cling to the concept artwork wants an air of specialness or exclusivity.”

Mario Iacampo, producer and inventive director of Exhibition Hub group behind “Van Gogh: The Immersive Expertise,” mentioned he got here to the duty in 2017 with a background in producing the Canadian gentle present Cavalia, not artwork. He picked Van Gogh as a result of he needed an artist with common attraction and a big oeuvre—Van Gogh created roughly 900 work—that translate simply over social media.

Mr. Iacampo mentioned he centered his iteration’s story line round “enjoyable information” in regards to the artist, such because the 700 letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother. He additionally created sunflower backdrops the place folks might simply pose for images.

The components works: Through the previous 4 years, Mr. Iacampo’s Van Gogh immersives have total bought 3.5 million tickets in 13 international locations, with plans to pop up in not less than six further U.S. cities quickly. It prices about $1 million to create the preliminary design, he mentioned, however far much less to set it up in a number of cities, a enterprise mannequin akin to circuses or rock concert events.

“As a lot as we respect museums, they’re a chilly atmosphere the place you’re anticipated to find out about artwork while you stroll in,” he mentioned. “There’s no studying curve with us. You are available and also you hear his story.”

In Columbus, the museum director Ms. Maciejunes determined to do some reconnaissance by attending her native Van Gogh immersive—and she or he wound up taking notes, not jabs. She significantly appreciated one big primer on impasto, or his model of thickly layering paint, in better element than her museum ever has finished. However she mentioned digital projections don’t advance any lasting scholarship on artists and decrease the heavy lifting curators usually do.

It took Nicole Myers, senior curator of European artwork on the Dallas museum, 9 years and a group of 20 researchers and conservators to reorder the 15 olive-grove work Van Gogh painted in 1889. The ensuing present represents the primary time 10 of the examples have been publicly proven collectively.

To create an intimate setting, Ms. Myers organized a number of works in an oval gallery painted deep purple. In contrast to the opposite Van Gogh exhibits on the town, there is no such thing as a music blaring or bean luggage piled on the ground. “We needed to drag you in so that you simply really feel such as you’re surrounded by an olive grove,” Ms. Myers mentioned. “I hate to name it immersive, however we have been going for one thing completely different.”

Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com