In the animated 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action, a gun-toting Elmer Fudd chases Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck through a museum. The pursued pair try to escape by running through famous paintings such as Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Time, Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
As a way to escape Elmer Fudd, the ploy worked perfectly. As an immersive art experience, it left something to be desired – not least of which was that it couldn’t be experienced by anyone of more than two dimensions.
Fortunately, immersive art shows now can accommodate viewers other than anthropomorphized animals and their frenemies. Beyond Van Gogh and Beyond Monet, on view at Straz Center through Sept. 28, doesn’t put the viewer in the artwork; it creates a virtual world around its audience that provides new perspectives through which to experience the works.
The exhibits create “a space for an audience to be surrounded by works without a frame,” said Fanny Curtat, the art historian for Beyond Van Gogh and Monet.
“These are extensions of the artworks,” said Curtat. “They don’t replace the experience of actually seeing the work in person.”
Indeed, there are elements even the most advanced digital technology can’t recreate, such as the texture of the thick swirls of paint in Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.
“The digital projections don’t have the texture,” Curtat said. “But they provide a different perception. They convey the urgency of the work.”
Providing a different perspective on Van Gogh is an important part of the show, Curtat said.
Van Gogh struggled with poverty and mental health issues. He sliced off part of his ear, likely during a mental health crisis, and took his own life at age 37.
“People remember him for the darkness in his life,” Curtat said. “But when you look at his work, that’s not what you see. His work is filled with light, color and with joy. There’s so much more to him.”
Monet is known for his series paintings, of which Water Lillies is the most famous.
Monet would paint the same subject again and again, Curtat said, “so it becomes apparent that he’s not painting the subject. He’s painting the air between him and his subject. Seeing the series shows his process.”
The exhibit offers information to put both artists and their works in perspective, but the impact of both Beyonds comes from the stunning projections, which can surround viewers on all sides with an artist’s work.
The goal, Curtat said, was to “create a dialogue between the capabilities of this technology and the art, to tell stories, and discover why we still relate to these works hundreds of years later.”
“It’s an approach that is different but meaningful,” Curtat said.