'Beyond Monet: The Immersive Experience' to launch in Miami

If you loved "Beyond Van Gogh" at Miami's Ice Palace Studios, the same collaborators are bringing you "Beyond Monet: The Immersive Experience" at the same location. 

Like "Van Gogh," which sold more than two million tickets in six months, this show was initially slated for a two-month run beginning Jan. 7, with plans to extend along with demand. However, the launch date is delayed due to the sudden surge of COVID cases. 

The new exhibition will showcase 400 of Claude Monet’s most iconic works, including the beloved “Water Lilies” series, “Impression, Sunrise” and “Poppies.”

Monet was a leading figure in the French impressionist movement, which took hold in the late 1800s. Several landscape artists influenced his work, inspiring him to paint the sweeping creations that brought him fame. But Monet wasn’t always pleased with his own work. He became so frustrated with it that some reports claim he may have destroyed up to 500 of his paintings by burning or slashing them. He also was reportedly prone to bouts of depression and self-doubt.

Critics called Monet and other artists of his time with similar styles “impressionists.” The phrase was meant to be derogatory, saying that their work seemed more like sketches than finished paintings. The term seemed fitting, because Monet sought to capture the essence of the natural world using strong colors and bold, short brushstrokes. He and his contemporaries turned away from the blended colors and evenness of classical art.

Now, his more than 150-year-old masterpieces will be brought to new life outside the confines of four-cornered frames and onto the massive walls, floor and ceiling of the Ice Palace through cutting-edge projection technology. Instead of the traditional rectangle, screens are placed to eliminate hard edges and create an oval-shaped space called the “Infinity Room.” Here you’ll feel as if you’re inside Monet’s paintings as you listen to a dramatic voice-over of his thoughts and writings against a new original score of French classical origin.

So, what else is different about this show, as compared to “Beyond Van Gogh?”

“It’s bigger and more wow … a lot more interactive, said David Rosenfeld, president of Primo Entertainment. “‘Monet’ has ponds and bridges, so it’s like a movie set – you go across bridges and water and visit another area as if you are inside his world. From the minute you walk in you are inside his world.”

That world is presented in three parts, beginning with the external grounds of the venue at 1400 N Miami Ave., which “gives people more to see, more to touch, more to experience,” said Rosenfeld. Once inside, the education area takes you on a journey through Monet’s life and the French landscapes that were his greatest inspiration. Then it’s off to the “Infinity Room” to experience the colorful majesty of his work.

Rosenfeld explains that while this multisensory adventure welcomes the typical art lover and museumgoer, “There is a revolution of immersive ways of experiencing art to attract the mainstream public who weren’t that attracted to art before.”

Given the thousands of people who attended simultaneously competing van Gogh experiences in Miami last year – one at Ice Palace Studios and the other at the Olympia Theater – Rosenfeld and others are definitely on to something.

Miami-based Primo Entertainment was primarily a concert promotion company, but “Beyond Van Gogh” took them into the world of experiential exhibitions and spawned a new division to take on “Monet” and future shows with Canada-based collaborators Paquin Entertainment.

Their next project is a space-themed exhibition approved by NASA, showcasing many artifacts from the Apollo space mission of 1967. It’s being produced in collaboration with the Cosmosphere space museum in Kansas and will be presented inside a 35,000-square-foot structure at Maurice A. Ferré Park in downtown Miami, formerly known as Bicentennial Park. Look for this to open in March.

Meanwhile, with “Beyond Van Gogh” on its way to Latin America, it’s all about “Monet” for now. Ticket prices start at $23.99 for children and $42.99 for adults, with packages for families and groups as well as discounts for seniors, students and military personnel. VIP tickets will now include valet parking a special treat from the gift shop. To purchase tickets, visit MiamiMonet.com.

Klimt Immersive Experience Coming in February

Producers of “Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” at Miami’s Olympia Theater at 174 NE Flagler St. are turning over the space to present “Klimt: The Immersive Experience” in February. Tickets went on sale mid-December at KlimtExpo.com/miami.

The exhibition will feature floor-to-ceiling, 360-degree video projection of Gustav Klimt’s art and Exhibition Hub’s ever-popular, companion virtual reality experience.

Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna art nouveau movement from 1890-1910. Although he painted many landscapes, Klimt’s primary subject was the female body and those works are frequently described as erotic. They are often distinguished by elegant gold or colored decoration, spirals and swirls, and phallic shapes used to conceal the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based.