Immerse Yourself in the World of Van Gogh and Monet at The Straz Center

Beginning this month, The Straz Center is bringing an all-new experience to life with Beyond Van Gogh and Beyond Monet: The Immersive Experience. The multisensory event will take place from August 1 through September 14 and will allow you to step directly inside the works of both world-renowned artists.

Featuring innovative projections, original soundscapes, and vibrant storytelling, this event is sure to captivate audiences of all ages. Walk through Claude Monet’s vibrant gardens and experience Vincent Van Gogh’s swirling starry skies through images projecting from floor to ceiling. See some of the artists’ most famous Impressionism and Post-Impressionism works such as Monet’s “Water Lilies” and “Woman with a Parasol” and Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” “Almond Blossoms,” and “Sunflowers” will come to life with bright, colorful images accompanied by a symphonic score.

Families of All Ages Can Dive Deep Into the Worlds of Van Gogh and Monet

What's great about this experience is that it's perfect for all ages and is a great way to introduce younger children to the world of art. We had a chance to catch up with art historian, Franny Curtat, the show's curator to discuss how the experience came to life, what to expect, and why families will love it.

TBPM: This looks like such a unique experience! Why did you decide to bring it to Tampa?

Fanny: I think it's going to be even better in a community like Tampa that's already used to art and a more traditional museum-type experience.  But in the museum world, how many exhibits have there been on Van Gogh and Monet? It's something that is quite common, even more so for figures such as these two icons.

So it is always about providing a different angle into these works, providing a different perspective and a new storytelling or new ways for a 21st audience to relate to these 19th century, early 20th century body of works. I think it's even better for a community that's already used to sort of that aspect of the art world.

TBPM: How long did this take to create and where did the idea stem from?

Fanny: The whole thing took about six months to create back in 2020. Six months went really fast, but it is a project that was very much based on the chaos that we were all going through during COVID. It was about providing something that was a cultural, meaningful experience, and it was that needed to be adaptable and very flexible.

And so having a big space like this, projection-based, it was something that would allow the production team to adapt to every city according to every health measures that were being put into place, change. Everything was so chaotic. It was really something that we needed to tackle in terms of flexibility of the device itself. Van Gogh was the first show that we created in 2020, and we did Monet in 2021. We were very proud of it. We knew we had something that we loved, but it also speaks to the power of Vincent's and then Monet’s as well.

TBPM: Can you give us an overview of what to expect?

Fanny: As you set foot into the space, the first room that we have is called the introduction hall. And that's where you have a lot of context. You have quotes, you have elements of their lives to provide a different angle, a little bit of a deeper angle, because when you think of Van Gogh, you think of the cutting ear incident mostly.

And for a lot of people, it stops there, but there's something a little bit unfortunate about that, that his whole life sort of becomes subdued to this one moment that he had no recollection of. He was not conscious when he did that. So there's something a little bit sadly ironic about this incredible, powerful work being associated with the darkest moment in his life.

You do have context and quotes, and it's such a wonderful thing to be able to read these quotes because he's so open with his brother. The correspondence between the two is so unique.

And it's really a beautiful thing. And the same can be said for Monet, who had a second wife who was incredibly jealous, and he had to write a lot to just keep her on track. So you get a sense of who they were.

It's a very free-flowing aspect too. You can grab pieces here and there. Obviously, if you have little kids, you're probably not going to spend all of your time reading everything. So, it's meant to be very grabbable information and adaptable to people and their families. And then you set foot into this first room in the immersive space and you have the shows that are working one after the other.

You have half an hour of Van Gogh, a two-minute break in between, and then you switch to half an hour of Monet. People can stay as long as they want. They can do the whole loop twice if they want, but you have this sort of rotation.

Everything is uplifted by music that really adds this dreamlike quality to these journeys.

As for the whole space, it's actually hard to describe an immersive experience because it is something that you feel as much as you sort of understand it. All of the walls are covered, and the floor is covered as well. And everything moves along with the experience.

TBPM: Why do you think this show will be good for families?

Fanny: The first time I saw it, I saw kids running around the brushstrokes following the swirly sky of Starry Night, and when you have the petals of the almond blossom, the lily pads of the water lilies and kids jumping from one to the next, it becomes purposeful because I believe these type of experiences can be a good introduction, not only for kids, but also for a lot of adults and teenagers and people of all ages that don't necessarily relate or have a hard time with art history as a whole or find museums maybe a little bit intimidating.

There's something about this type of device where it literally leaps towards you. It's very playful, and the sound and the music are loud enough that you don’t have to shush the kids all the time. They can be very, very free in the space.

And I think that's what art should be. It's never going to replace an art museum experience. To me, there's nothing in it that's meant to be one or the other.

It's really just providing something different and maybe a little bit of a stepping stone because if you spend so much time with Starry Night swirling around you and you build memories with your family in that space, next time you find yourself in New York, maybe you'll be curious about going to MoMA and stand in front of the original Starry Night and feel the aura of the original work.

TBPM: Kids can probably make a connection to these pieces from seeing them incorporated into modern pieces, posters, etc.

Fanny: Which is really neat. For both of these artists, they're on chocolate boxes, mugs, puzzles. And that's a great thing also about a project like this.

And the idea to go beyond and show all of the context around it because these pieces – I'm going to call them blockbusters – are sort of already in our day-to-day lives. They're ubiquitous. For example, I've had many notebooks with the Almond Blossom painting of Van Gogh on them and it's something that’s become this familiar link. And then it's about providing context for it. And that context only deepens the attachment that you then have with this image, because you do have this connection that you've built.

And going back to transferring to a museum experience, the average time that people stay in front of an artwork in a museum is usually 13 seconds, but it is going to be longer if you have this special connection. And as a kid, it is also great to have this building block of the art world that just adds to the way art is already part of your day-to-day life.

TBPM: For people who aren’t familiar with their work, what can we expect to see from both Van Gogh and Monet?

Fanny: For Van Gogh, it's very much about healing through art, healing through nature. So there's energy. It's very much non-confrontational because it's really trying to be a solution to darkness in people's lives. It was sharing what he found worked for him with other people. And that's very clearly what he writes to his brother in his correspondence. It's really about providing light and a solution out of darkness.

When you look at Monet, he's also the same. We don't think about all the darkness in his life because obviously he didn't cut off part of his own ear, but he did struggle immensely. He went through a war. He lost his first son during the war. He lost his first wife. He had a lot of loss in his life, loss of grief.

And you don't see that when you look at his work. His work remains incandescent. It remains beautiful. It is about finding a solution in this contemplative way of life. Monet is not painting a ‘thing.’ He's painting the air between himself and the subject, between himself and the motif.

TBPM: What are some moments during the experience that you think really stand out?

Fanny: For Van Gogh, it's hard to choose, but I still have a few moments that I really, really adore. In Van Gogh, you have the Almond Blossom that I said I had notebooks about, and it's a beautiful painting with a baby blue backdrop and these almonds, a tree, very much influenced by a Japanese style that he did.

He loved Japanese woodblock printing, and you have these delicate white flowers. He did that painting when his nephew was born, and his brother, Theo wrote to him saying, ‘we have a boy. I hope he's going to be as strong as you. I hope he's going to be as fierce as you. We'll name him Vincent.’ And that's the painting he did in response to that.

For me, it's just a great example of how we think of him for such dark elements of his life, for mental illness, poverty, isolation, and all of these things are true to a certain extent, but there was also a lot of joy and a lot of appreciation for life in his work. To have these delicate petals flowing all around, and again, the children twirling, adults twirling as well. It's just a very magical moment.

As for Monet, it's hard not to enjoy the Water Lilies, but there are two scenes that I really love. And one of them is at the beginning of the show, and we call it the ‘radical scene’ and its only quotes.

In white you have Monet and in red, you have all of the critics just to show that we forget how much he struggled. We remember Van Gogh struggling, but it was the same for Monet. And you see how ruthless French critics are. And I can say that being French – I'm French and Canadian. I think we own it. But it is ruthless.

You can see just how incredibly hard it was for the French audience to accept this work. And you have Monet's response of what he was trying to do, which is just transferring a little bit of what the universe was showing him. To me, starting a show with how much struggling there was for him to fight for what we think now as just beautiful pictures, he fought for them to be recognized. He knew what he could have been doing. Van Gogh was the same. They knew what they could have been doing in order to sell and be prolific artists and sell their work. But they really fought for this subjective point of view that they were trying to put forth.

Beyond Van Gogh and Beyond Monet Details:

Location:

Morisani Hall at The Straz Center.

The Straz Center is located at 1010 N. MacInnes Pl., Tampa, FL 33602

Dates:

August 1-September 14, 2025

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12 pm-6:30 pm

Wednesdays from 10 am-6:30 pm

Fridays from 12 pm-7:30 pm

Saturdays from 10 am-7:30 pm

Sundays from 10 am-5:30 pm

Showtimes are every 45 minutes

For tickets, visit strazcenter.org.

*There will be short breaks during the show and there will be chairs located around the experience for those who would prefer to sit.

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