Immersed in Klimt

I have had my mind blown – the best art exhibition I have ever visited, yet one without a single original painting by the artist! Klimt The Immersive Exhibition is on at Warsaw's Soho Arts Center (ulica Mińska 63) until 7 July.

THIS is the way to experiencing art. The exhibition is divided into three parts; the first is a historical guide to the painter and his most significant works, presented as 1:1 reproductions (not optimal, I must say, but reasonable representations. This is the part that requires focus; the text is in Polish and needs careful reading (although an audio version in English is available). It gives you the necessary historical, social and artistic context (assuming you haven't read up about Gustav Klimt at home online) to engage with the rest of the exhibition.

Left: photograph of Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), when he was in his mid-20s. Photographer unknown. 

Symbolism was a late-19th century European art movement in poetry and other arts, seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through metaphor images, a reaction against naturalism and realism.

And then onto the amazing second part...

You enter a giant space, the size of an aircraft hangar. On all the walls and hanging from the ceilings are massive screens, the largest being some eight metres by four. Some are landscape format, some are portrait format. On each, sections of a painting are displayed, moving. Some zoom in, some pan across; some zoom out, some pan up or down. You take a large bean-bag seat and drag it to a position of your choice. Strategically placed, you can have up to six screens within your field of vision, from edge to edge. Lying face-up on the bean-bag, the images wash over you. The music you hear is from the European canon; Mozart, Chopin, Wagner, Mahler. You see the works as the painter would have seen them; close-up and big-picture at the same time; in continuous motion. This experience takes in dozens of well-known Klimt works. The tape is looped; there's nothing stopping you from spending several hours immersed in this world.

This, however, is not the end – the final part involves donning a headset and virtual-reality goggles, and entering a virtual art gallery with numerous easels displaying more of Klimt's paintings, themselves arranged as though the gallery itself is a Klimt painting. You move through the gallery, up to the paintings. You can look left or right, up or down as the image tracks in, bringing you closer and closer to each painting. This offers an entirely new way at looking at art; I guess that once Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest and Microsoft Hololens have overcome their teething troubles and broken through into the mass market the way smartphones have, we'll all have the opportunity to experience the world's great art as never before.

I have seen the future of art exhibitions – and it works. Purists may scoff (indeed, Google Reviews is full of Varsovian scoffers with the one-star reviews and five-star reviewers balancing out over three). For me, however, this way of showing great art to a large audience and seeing it viscerally and close up worked perfectly – thanks Beata for the suggestion!

Technology is allowing mankind to access art with a new intimacy that offers vastly more insight into the artist's mind and creativity. This is the second such immersive exhibition, the first one shown in Warsaw focused on Vincent Van Gogh (an excellent choice, given the commercial and critical success of Oscar-winning Polish-British co-production, Loving Vincent). 

Experiencing the exhibition left me with a strong feeling of Klimt's influence on 20th century art and indeed graphic art. Here's a good overview of his most notable works. Gustav Klimt died at the age of 55 in 1918 during the influenza pandemic.

This time last year:
No longer the place to live

This time two years ago:
Textures of Childhood

This time three years ago:
Stupendous sunset, Sułkowice

This time eight years ago:
Politics - the importance of fact.

This time nine years ago:
Rural Mazovian toponyms

This time ten years ago:
Carrying the weight on both shoulders

This time 11 years ago:
Railway history - the big picture

This time 13 years ago:
A new lick of paint for W-wa Powiśle

This time 14 years ago:
The ingredients of success