Moving Art from Canvas to Screen with Technology

Miami is blossoming with interactive art experiences this spring. Two are traveling pop-up immersive exhibitions, although both are making their debuts in Miami. In the Allapattah neighborhood, a 50,000-square-foot space across from the Rubell Museum will become a permanent center focused solely on experiential art.

“No longer do people want to be passive viewers,” said Shantelle Rodriguez, the director of experiential art centers for Superblue Miami, whose first space is set to open in mid-to-late April. “Our daily life has changed in the way people engage. Social media technology and all the advances in the past 10 to 20 years have created the idea of building community. People want to get out there and be part of something.”

So what is experiential and immersive art exactly? Usually executed in large scale and using digital technology, these multimedia experiences are meant for the spectator to not merely be an observer, but to become part of the show.

“Experiential art is really going to open the door and make people feel a part of the art world,” Rodriguez said.

Spring in Miami, at least in the visual art sector, will be about getting out after a dearth of arts and social interaction during the pandemic. To stay safe, creators are inviting guests to visit large spaces and become immersed in art.

“Beyond Van Gogh: An Immersive Experience” will take over the Ice Palace Studios in Wynwood April 15 through July 11. Literally on stage at the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Ziff Ballet Opera House, “Lasting Impressions” will show May 19 through June 16, where guests will walk into the masterpieces of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat and other impressionists in a 3D LED experience. Superblue Miami is a permanent gallery that will have three exhibition spaces with interactive installations.

All three are getting their start in Miami, so visitors will be shaping the art exhibitions’ futures, according to those in charge of making the experiences happen.

“Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience”

At least five touring shows are crisscrossing the country that bring Vincent van Gogh’s paintings from still life to larger than life. The trend of van Gogh immersive experiences really took off in the United States when a themed light show from Paris’s L’Atelier des Lumières was featured in the Netflix show “Emily in Paris.” Miami is getting the world premiere of a Montreal-born immersive experience.

“Beyond Van Gogh” will be spread over 35,000 square feet in the Ice Palace Film Studios. Created by Normal Studio, Mathieu St-Arnaud, creative director and partner, said despite all the multiple productions, the company’s “Van Gogh” doesn’t just take spectators into the paintings, but into the mind of the artist.

“We want you to step into his world, his vision,” said St-Arnaud. “What’s driven our whole narrative is for it to be about Vincent. It’s something that I wanted to be very personal. I said, ‘Let’s get into his mind.’”

Like the other immersive experiences, the company has added movement and life to van Gogh’s paintings using digital technology in 3-D.

“There is already movement in the paintings, we just add life to them,” said St-Arnaud.

The exhibition includes more than 300 of the artist’s works. Visitors move along three to four sections with the images projected on walls 20 feet high.

“Lots of pixels and a lot of lights,” said St-Arnaud, referencing still shapes on the original paintings that swirl with movement and then refocus into flowers, floors and landscapes.

“You go beyond the frame and the image to enter the painting,” said Fanny Curtat, an art historian brought on as a consultant to the project to maintain a respect for the work.

“It had been on our minds to not go out of bounds,” said St-Arnaud. “That’s why Fanny had a big role in this. We told her the way we wanted to animate every scene and she would comment on if the choices were correct. We were always trying to be always respectful and not just present the artwork.”

The 35-minute experience is free roaming, meaning there is no set way of viewing it. However, guests – who will be admitted with advance tickets – will find upon entry a path to follow through different spaces before arriving in the main gallery, in order to ensure safe entrance and adhere to COVID-19 protocols.

“It’s an immense space inside and we are limiting the amount of people allowed in at one time. You can be safely distanced,” St-Arnaud assured.

The show is set to a soundtrack created by Canadian composer Jean-Sébastien Côté that St-Arnaud said has a modern classical tone.

“Maybe some Coldplay, Beatles or obscure music. Or Debussy remixed in a different way,” mused St-Arnaud. “The soundtrack also has different sound effects – birds chirping, wind and children laughing. The layering of both the images and the music is really what creates the emotional journey for people.”

While art purists have found the immersive experiences to be nothing less than commercial, Curtat sees them as a bridge to get more people interested in a world that is usually inaccessible to the masses.

“It’s a good opportunity to present the work of van Gogh to people who won’t necessarily go to a museum, but who might go to a museum after seeing this,” said Curtat. “There’s something to be said about these events that maybe cater to a wider audience than a museum would, but it actually connects both worlds. Wouldn’t that be a great experience for everybody?”

If You Go

“Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience”

April 15 through July 11

Ice Palace Studios

1400 N Miami Ave., Miami

305.347.7400 and IcePalaceStudios.com

Admission: $93.99 VIP, $36.99 adults, $23.99 children aged 5-15, free for children aged 4 and under

“Lasting Impressions: The 3D LED Experience”

The other show that focuses on the impressionist and post-impressionist artists arrives in May. “Lasting Impressions: The 3D LED Experience” makes its debut in Miami on an 18,000-square-foot stage at the Arsht Center.

Producer Ed Kasses of Princeton Entertainment also created the immersive experience “America’s Wonders,” where a live orchestra accompanied 3D images that take concertgoers inside a spectacular sunrise over the Grand Canyon or through a 3D walk in New York’s Times Square.

“We spent a lot of time working with the 3D LED technology, which we created in association with 3D Live from Los Angeles which has patented technology to take LED screens and turn them into 3D LED screens that are absolutely unbelievable,” Kasses said.

When COVID-19 hit, a tour of “America’s Wonders” was put on pause because the show needed to take place inside a concert hall and with a live orchestra, neither of which was possible.

“When we couldn’t take ‘America’s Wonders’ on the road anymore, I was thinking, ‘What can we do with our screens to move forward?’ And then I started thinking about the enormous success of the van Gogh in Paris,” said Kasses, but he didn’t want to stick with one artist. “How much better would it be if we explored the art of all the great French Impressionists and do it in 3D.”

He said the eye-popping technology makes it look as if the artists’ brushstrokes are leaping off the screen and coming to life around the viewer.

“You stand among Degas’ dancers. The dancers will look like they come off the screen and will be standing right next to you,” said Kasses.

More than 100 masterpieces from artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne and George Seurat surround guests in 3D. Trees sway in the breeze, boats in the water bob up and down, steam swirls out of an engine painted on a canvas and snowflakes fall along a Paris street.

“This is a way to see some of the world’s greatest masterpieces in a way you’ve never seen them before,” enthused Kasses.

Attendees enter the show by going through a corridor backstage, then onstage is divided into four rooms, each a 3D experience to be enjoyed for about 15 minutes. Customized portable stools are free to all viewers should they prefer to sit rather than stand. Guests are given Sennheiser headsets that play a soundtrack synchronized to the art that’s decidedly French: Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and French standards featuring Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour.

Kasses said he picked Miami to debut “Lasting Impressions” because he had worked with the Arsht Center and at other places producing shows in the city.

“The idea for this is to provide an opportunity for major performing arts centers to come back to life while COVID is still restricting the number of people that can sit in the s

eats,” he explained.

Exhibitiongoers will enter on a time-ticketed schedule; social distancing and other COVID-19 protocols will be in place.

If You Go

“Lasting Impressions: The 3D LED Experience”

May 19 through June 16

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

Ziff Ballet Opera House

1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

Arshtcenter.org and 305.949.6722

Admission: $85 VIP, $42 general admission

Superblue Miami

The cofounders of Superblue Miami are Marc Glimcher, president and CEO of Pace Gallery, and Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, who was the director of London’s Pace Gallery and is now the CEO of Superblue. Emerson Collective, founded by Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, was Superblue’s first major investor, according to Rodriguez.

“They are a social change organization and we do have a social change aspect to the work that will be at the center,” she said.

With the tagline “Created by artists, completed by you,” Superblue Miami is the first of many planned experiential art centers set to open around the country. Rodriguez said there are three reasons it does not fit into the category of museum or gallery.

“First, we share our ticket revenue with the artists. Every ticket sold, some of that revenue goes back to the artist that presents in the space,” she said.

Then, it’s about space.

“These are uninterrupted spaces,” said Rodriguez. “Whereas other art institutions give the artist a box to work within, we work with the artists and our spaces are large. We have 26-foot ceilings. We are able to take an idea that an artist has and with our team, we can execute that vision. And, we have enough space for them to dream and create whatever they wish.”

Of course, the main attraction is the immersive aspect of the art itself.

“We aren’t a pop-up site. We will have three installations opening in the space,” with three of them semi-permanent and one a place where exhibitions can change, Rodriguez said.

The three inaugural presentations will be by James Turell, Es Devlin and teamLab.

Rodriguez said that Miami was short-listed and eventually chosen as the city for the inaugural art center because it has “a vibrant arts ecosystem already in place and an audience that is interested in entertainment and in seeking new experiences.”

They found the right space, too, in the Allapattah neighborhood – an industrial building with plenty of space for installations, areas for artists to create and workshop space. An outdoor café and eventually a museum shop are in the works.

And why the name Superblue? Rodriguez said Glimcher was inspired by the Blue Rider movement, a group of artists based in Germany that contributed to the development of abstract art. Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc were two influential artists of the movement.

“The name is derived [from Kandinsky and Marc], who believed that blue was the most spiritual color and that it pushed boundaries of human perception,” Rodriguez explained. “Super has connotations of power.”

If You Go

Superblue Miami

1101 NW 23rd St., Miami

Superblue.com and miami@superblue.com

Admission: varies, $35 general entry