The Immersive Van Gogh Machine Needs to Sit Down

I have a modest proposal for the booming “immersive art” industry: before projecting 47 million animated sunflowers onto a wall, ask whether the painting actually wants to move.

The answer, in the case of Vincent van Gogh, is usually no. Van Gogh’s paintings already contain motion. The brushwork trembles. The stars whirl. The wheat leans like it has just heard gossip. You can stand in front of The Starry Night and feel the sky behaving badly. It does not need to be enlarged to the size of a municipal swimming pool while a string quartet cover plays something emotionally aggressive.

These exhibitions are often sold as a democratization of art, and I’m all for that. A person who would never enter a museum may happily wander into a room of glowing color, take an excellent photograph, and leave curious about the actual paintings. Wonderful. Art should have more front doors.

But the projection is not the painting. It is a theme-park adaptation of the painting, and the distinction matters. A reproduction can teach you something. A theatrical installation can move you. But when every brushstroke is animated into a lava lamp and every sad fact about the artist is turned into inspirational wallpaper, we are no longer looking at Van Gogh. We are looking at a motivational poster with a tragic backstory.

The strangest part is the insistence that these shows are “experiences,” as if standing quietly in front of an artwork is not already one. Museums have spent decades persuading us that looking is an active verb. Then along comes a giant projection that says, essentially, Don’t worry, we’ll do the looking for you.

Still, I won’t sneer at anyone who loves it. If a room full of animated paintings gets someone to ask why Van Gogh painted so many self-portraits, or what a brushstroke can do besides fill space, it has earned its ticket. The gateway drug is still a drug.

My demand is simply this: after the lights fade and the souvenir tote is purchased, go find a real painting. Stand close enough to see the decisions. Let it be smaller than your screen. Let it refuse to explain itself. That quiet, stubborn object may be the most immersive thing in the building.