Van Gogh Alive! Manila Leg: Is it worth the hype and will Vincent approves?

deanignacio
Nov 10, 2019
7 min read

I cannot consider myself to know a lot about art and paintings but I came to know Vincent when I was a kid through pop culture, an assignment on one of my high-school subject, a song by Don Mc Clean, from an encyclopedia entry about one of his paintings and more recently, an animated movie in 2017 about his final days as an artist (Your Loving Vincent). A picture of a man with a straw hat and orange beard always pops in my head every time I heard his name. Something about him I am very drawn at which to this day still I cannot point exactly. Maybe his vibrant brush stroke technique, or his self doubt as an artist, or his failure as a lover or maybe him living in poverty and desolation his whole life before getting the well deserved recognition posthumously. Whatever it is, you cannot deny the man is genius.

Every time I came across his paintings, I am always reminded that sometimes life is beautiful and at the same time unfair and ironic and sad but that is ok. All through his life he suffered and struggled from poverty, self doubt and on the latter part of his life, mental instability. He died from self inflicted would when he was exactly my age.

Here are some of the things you need to know about Vincent van Gogh

He is one of the most famous and influential artists of all time, but Vincent Wilhelm van Gogh struggled in obscurity during his brief life. Born in the village of Groot-Zundert, Holland on March 30, 1853, van Gogh was born into a religious, upper middle class family and after much traveling and various unfulfilling occupations, he took up painting with almost no prior formal training. His tremendous love of the landscapes, the still-lifes, the portraits and sketches with their vibrant colors and subjective perspective would revolutionize how the world viewed art. He fought depression and mental illness while creating an intense and arresting universe of images. He was posthumously proclaimed as the Father of Modern Art.

From November 1881 to July 1890, van Gogh produced close to 900 paintings. At the age of 27, he abandoned his unsuccessful career as an art dealer and being a missionary, instead, he concentrated primarily on his painting, sketching, drawing. When he began painting and he used peasants and farmers as models and then flowers, landscapes and himself because he was too poor to pay his subjects. In the years between starting to paint to his deathbed, he had made almost a thousand paintings – only one of which was sold during his lifetime.

His painting The Red Vineyards near Arles was painted on 1888 that depicts workers in a vineyard was sold to a sister of a friend at 400 francs. It is believed to be the only painting van Gogh sold during his lifetime.

His works started out bleak earth tones, as he moved from Holland to Paris then finally settling to Arles show a gradual transition from dark and brooding output to lush, vibrant color schemes he now famously known for.

His very first masterpiece, The Potato Eaters depict the harsh reality of country life, so he gave the peasants coarse faces and bony, working hands. Van Gogh wanted to show in this way that they ‘have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish that they have thus honestly earned their food. On the other hand, The Portrait of Dr. Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by the Dutch artist. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeophatic doctor and artist with whom van Gogh resided following a spell in an asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Gachet took care of Van Gogh during the final months of his life. There are two authenticated versions of the portrait, both painted in June 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise. Both show Gachet sitting at a table and leaning his head on his right arm, but they are easily differentiated in color and style. In May 1990, the first version was sold at auction for $82.5 million ($158.2 million today)- the most expensive van Gogh painting ever sold.

He was very close to his younger brother Theo, who believed his gift and supported his passion. They corresponds by letters they sent to each other on a regular basis.

He became acquainted to another famous Post Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin. For a brief 63 days during the fall of 1888, a yellow house at the corner of Place Lamartine in the southern French town of Arles was home to painters on divergent artistic paths. The modest two-story abode, which no longer exists, was immortalized in several paintings by Van Gogh, including The Yellow House (1888) and The Bedroom (1888). Van Gogh had moved to Arles from Paris in order to establish what he called a “studio of the south”—a utopian place to live and collaborate with fellow painters while studying the surrounding countryside. Gauguin accepted Van Gogh’s enthusiastic invitation, swayed heavily by the promised financial support from his art dealer, Van Gogh’s older brother, Theo, that accompanied his consent. Yet during this period, Van Gogh mutilated his left ear in a fit of rage, prompting Gauguin to swiftly board a train to Paris. The two never saw each other again, though they did continue to correspond via letters. What was the real reason why Van Gogh mutilated his left ear is still largely debated to this day.

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His self portrait after the ear mutilation incident. The ear was given by van Gogh himself to a prostitute as a token of his love.

On May 8 1889, he agreed to be admitted to the Asylum of Saint Paul-de-Mausole in the nearby town of Saint-Remy, at the suggestion of his friend Pastor Salles. His greatest fear was that he would not be allowed to continue to paint leaving him unable to contribute to his brother Theo’s 100 franc monthly rent. But within a month he had resumed painting.The painting titled Irises was among the firs to be completed. Its black contours are reminiscent of Japanese woodblock prints, which are produced at the turn of 17th century and influenced many European artist at the time including Van Gogh. This contours reinforce the expressive power of the painting.

van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles

Starry Night, arguably his most famous work, was painted in an asylum at Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France. After the infamous argument with Gaugin in 1888 which leads to a nervous breakdown and self mutilation of his left ear he voluntarily admitted himself there to recover. The painting depicts the view from his bedroom window at night. It has been part of the New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (MoMa) permanent collection since 1941.

In January 1891, six months after van Gogh’s death, his brother Theo, who’d contracted syphilis, died at age 34 in the Netherlands. Theo’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, inherited a large collection of Vincent’s paintings, drawings and letters. She made it her mission to help promote van Gogh’s work, in part by loaning it out for various exhibitions. Additionally, in 1914 she published a collection of letters written by van Gogh, in an effort to tell his life story. That same year, she had Theo’s remains moved from the Netherlands and re-interred in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, where Vincent was buried. After Jo passed away, her only child with Theo, Vincent Willem van Gogh, inherited his uncle’s artwork and eventually founded the Van Gogh Museum, which opened in Amsterdam in 1973.

Van Gogh Alive!, presented by Melbourne based Grande Exhibitions, is dubbed the “world’s most visited multi-sensory exhibition experience.” It hopes to put the usual art appreciation in a more contemporary, unique, out-of-the-box experience. Rather than often-intimidating confined spaces (museum) and into a more laidback and familiar place, like a shopping mall. Also, unlike your usual art galleries where paintings are hung on the blank wall, in the exhibit, you will see hundreds of Van Gogh’s pieces scaled massively are being projected on big screens, walls, columns, ceiling and even on the floor area. These larger-than-life image projections changes or switch places synchronized with a classical music transporting you to the post Impressionist era where Van Gogh lived.

The show has previously toured Athens, Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Berlin, Budapest, Istanbul, Madrid, Moscow, Rome, Shanghai, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Xiamen, and Hong Kong to name a few. After attracting thousands of people in more than 50 cities around the world, and finally, this year, from October to December 2019, Van Gogh Alive is finally coming to Manila. Grande Exhibitions, the creator and promoter of Van Gogh Alive had already travelled to over 130 cities across six continents and reached audiences of over 15 million people to date. They had also created, designed and produced several large scale art shows and exhibitions including a feature at the Museo Leonardo Da Vinci in Rome.

Though from what I’m seen online on exhibitions from other cities around the world and based on what I saw in Singapore almost 10 years ago, I was a little bit disappointed and underwhelmed. Compared abroad I felt the Manila leg that’s being showcased in BGC Taguig at the moment is mediocre and not at par with what the producers of the show had shown elsewhere. There’s no massive walls to project his artworks, the floors are bare and under utilized and the entire space was cramped and very confined. In two or more European exhibits, they even have ballerinas pirouetting in tune of a classical score. It is a very watered down in comparison to other cities abroad. The exhibit slot will run for 90 minutes but the entire show is just around 40 minutes so the entire show will be repeated twice. If you’re really a fan of his work you probably have to give the exhibit a skip because the presentation is more like an introduction to the man and to his works. But if you really wanted to give this immersive, multi-sensory experience a try (I think this is the first time it was done in the Philippines), then go for it. Based on what I saw ill give it 4/10.

Van Gogh Alive runs from October 26 to December 8 at 4/F One Bonifacio High Street Mall, 28th Street corner 5th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City. Ticket prices Php750 for adults, Php450 for children/students with special discounts (not available on online purchase) for seniors and PWD.