What the F was Van Gogh About?

Sunflowers, Starry Nights, and Smoke and Mirrors

As Bansky expressed “I want to live in a world created by art, not just decorated by it.” then Vincent Van Gogh is the go-to guru.  His art was far from decoration.  A small part of the world Van Gogh created with art can currently be viewed in the Van Gogh immersive experience art exhibited in downtown Miami.

This is not my first rendezvous with complexity of the art of Van Gogh  In July 2014, the Musee d’ Orsay in Paris hosted a special Van Gogh exhibit that featured actual masterpieces of Van Gogh from around the world.  So, after attending the Van Gogh show in Paris, little did I expect to be moved by a “immersive experience” in Miami.

Nonetheless, with Van Gogh, it is easy to wish the walls would talk, since Van Gogh’s work of two thousand or more paintings is often whittled down in memory to a few heady still life paintings of sunflowers, a view from his hospital window known as Starry Nights over the Rhone River, and the smoke and mirrors of the man himself highlighted by a cigar smoking self-portrait. 

The mirror of Van Gogh that most art watchers recall is his own litany of sad, almost heart wrenching, self portraits - most of which he painted shortly before taking his own life at 37 years old.   

We’ve all heard the rumors of Van Gogh that insist he removed an ear and sent it to his muse. More likely, as the story is revealed, Van Gogh graciously left one of his ears at a local brothel for one of his many muses “to remember him by.”

With no shortage of controversy, this exhibit is full of strange, if not amusing, surprises.  Van Gogh was the essence of the quintessential struggling artist - only selling one painting in his lifetime.  Ironically, Van Gogh’s art now sells for $80 million or more.

He not only created a world with art, he also decorated it with a curiosity of just “What The F@“ his art was really about.

A storyboarded journey of Van Gogh work is on display at Miami’s Olympia Theater.  The theater itself - renovated by famed then Miami-based architect Morris Lapidus - is worthy of the trip to see the Vincent Van Gogh “immersive experience”. 

For Van Gogh, nature was among his named inspirations. In a city where much of paradise has been paved for more condos and parking lots, and less nature, Van Gogh brings us the beauty of a most colorful nature in art - even if it is human nature. This is often as amusing as the man himself who is actually thought to have been color-blind.

As Van Gogh reminds us, “Normality is a paved road. It is comfortable to walk on but no flowers grow there ”. His final known art creation - “Tree Roots” - makes us wonder what seeds he would have planted next and what flowers may have grown. 

“Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and weekends and holidays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.  The curtain is up through most of Spring 2022. Similar exhibitions are currently in other cities throughout the U.S.. and other international cities.