Beyond Van Gogh St. Louis Immersive Experience, Is It Worth It?

 

 

Beyond Van Gogh is an immersive experience that takes you through some of Van Gogh’s past and brings you to his legacy’s future. This exhibit has traveled around the country with the entire exhibit being featured in various cities. The closest and most convenient exhibit to travel to from Carbondale is found at the Galleria in St. Louis.

The exhibit has been stationed at the galleria since 2021 and will remain until May 30th.  Originally it was due to stay until March however, due to high demand the exhibit is to remain an extra two months.  The price ranges from $24.99 – $93.99 all customers admitted get to walk through all three rooms in the exhibit.  Price varies due to age, social status(student, veteran, ect.), group, or VIP access. The prices for the St. Louis Location can be found here.

The first room is a room where people can walk through and read about Van Gogh’s life from when he was young up until he died.  The information is written on lit boards in both English and Spanish which have Van Gogh like backgrounds. There are hanging picture frames in rows between the rows of informational boards where you can either take pictures or wonder why they were so impractically placed.  

The second room is called the waterfall room.  Those prone to dizziness may want to skip this room specifically.  Due to the nature of the projection you may get the feeling that you are moving.  The projection has a waterfall-like effect of what seems like melting paintings and a ‘waterfall of color’. This room’s projection is on a five minute loop where you have the ability to watch and move on or stay for as long as you desire.  

The third and final room is the exhibit’s greatest attraction. The final room is the largest room with a thirty minute loop of various artworks created by Van Gogh.  Beginning with Starry Night the projections on all walls including the floor and excluding the ceiling transition to some of Van Gogh’s most popular paintings to some that are woefully underrepresented. 

Once you have stayed for as long as you ever so please you are met with the end of the show and a gift shop at the end of your journey.  When speaking to Beyond Van Gogh employee Jordan Cole they stated that many customers often felt underwhelmed by the experience. “ So like this is a production company right so there’s different types of  exhibits. And so a lot of people are kind of underwhelmed by this one specifically because different cities have different set ups and so I have had people tell me about the different ones that they’ve been to and they’re like ‘oh they had this room, and they had actual flowers’ or something.”

The immersive experience was an event that was entertaining, fun, and new.  At the expense of roughly 36 dollars per person I personally would not go back.  The experience can be viewed online on YouTube, which I would recommend if you do not want to pay an excessive fee. 

When Cole was asked what the typical responses are from the audience they responded with “Most people really enjoy it. They like the music, they really like the music, they ask about the music a lot, a lot of questions but usually people like it.”  The music is another factor contributing to the immersive experience overall however the air circulation/heat generators create a lot of distracting noise.  The playlist can be found here.  

If you so desire, go to the exhibit.  Just keep in mind that Van Gogh’s artwork doesn’t deserve the millions of dollars in revenue that is acquired.