IMMERSIVE VAN GOGH AND DESIGNER DAVID KORINS (HAMILTON) JOIN FORCES TO CREATE THE LARGEST AND MOST ELABORATE ITERATION OF THE EXHIBIT
Slated to be Seen in 19 Cities Across North America in 2021, Immersive Van Gogh Brings the Artist’s Masterpieces to Life Via 500,000 Cubic Feet of Projections Indoors in New York
Hailed as “Mind-Blowing” (Toronto Star) and “Undeniably Impressive” (–Time Out Chicago)
Immersive Van Gogh, the highly-anticipated immersive art installation coming to New York this summer, announced today that Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated designer David Korins, known for his set designs featured in numerous Broadway hits including Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, will serve as Creative Director New York for the installation. Scheduled to open on June 10, a new block of tickets will go on sale to the public Saturday, April 24 at 10 a.m. ET. The New York location and further details, including a preview of David Korins’ designs, will be revealed at a virtual press event on Friday, April 23 at 10 am ET.
As the Official Card Sponsor of Immersive Van Gogh in New York, American Express® Card Members have exclusive pre-sale access to the new block of tickets before the general public beginning Monday, April 19 at 10 a.m. ET through Wednesday, April 21 at 9:59 a.m. ET here.
Korins will join creative team for Immersive Van Gogh, the original North American immersive celebration of Van Gogh’s art. The team includes Creator Massimiliano Siccardi; Composer Luca Longobardi and Art Director Vittorio Guidotti. This winning team will make Immersive Van Gogh the most impressive staging to date and the most expansive in the world, having already opened to tremendous acclaim in Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco, with additional openings scheduled for 16 cities across North America, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas and more. Since its North American premiere in July 2020, more than 1 million tickets have been sold to Immersive Van Gogh, making it the most popular attraction currently in North America.
Immersive Van Gogh invites audiences to “step inside” the iconic works of post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, evoking his highly emotional and chaotic inner consciousness through art, light, music, movement and imagination. The gallery space offers patrons more than 500,000 cubic feet of animated projections. Renowned Creative Director Korins will create a custom design to fit the architecture of the exhibition’s New York home, adding elements to the gallery space as well as adjacent auxiliary elements. Korins will create numerous New York-specific installations, viewing platforms and high-tech, experiential and interactive elements previously unseen in any other venue.
“Immersive Van Gogh has been hailed as an entirely new way of encountering art and has been enthusiastically embraced by press and patrons in every city in which it currently is being presented,” said Producer Corey Ross. “Our New York exhibition will be by far our most ambitious. Not only do we have the talents of our ingenious Italian creative team, we also have David Korins bringing his distinct creative vision to the project to provide an unsurpassed guest experience.”
“This will be an event that New Yorkers and visitors can enjoy safely, quite literally surrounding themselves with the work of Vincent van Gogh, one of the greatest artists who ever lived,” added Producer Svetlana Dvoretsky.
“I am thrilled to be collaborating with the creative minds behind the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit to create a truly unique experience for the city of New York to enjoy and be inspired by,” said David Korins, Creative Director New York. “I have always been deeply moved when looking at Van Gogh’s paintings, which are universally beloved for their color and unique use of texture, or his transcendent ink drawings, and I’m humbled by the opportunity to develop an experience that will enhance the viewers’ time spent with his powerful art.”
It is expected that Immersive Van Gogh will be the first event of its magnitude since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We have a track record of producing this event safely in numerous cities throughout North America,” said Co-Producer Irina Shabshis. “We hope that this will lift the spirits of so many New Yorkers, who have not had the opportunity to experience cultural attractions for the past year, with first-rate production values that will make this one of the top events in the city this summer,” added Co-Producer Maria Shclover.
“David Korins is a very experienced and creative; he is giving his professional and artistic contributions to the implementation of the New York venue that will host my creation Immersive Van Gogh“, said Creator Massimiliano Siccardi, “I have enormous respect for his creativity, and I feel that his vision will be able to excellently enhance the audience experience, priming their minds as they enter and exit our exhibit, and also creating architectural enhancements that will provide unique vantage points from which they can observe my work. Most of all, I know that David shares a deep appreciation of and respect for the work of Vincent van Gogh, and that he, like me, wants to pay homage to the brilliance of his body of work, a legacy that influenced us all in our individual development as artists.”
Immersive Van Gogh has received rave reviews from critics and patrons. The Chicago Tribune exclaimed “entire rooms pulse with imagery and emotional resonance.” The Toronto Sun declared, “the mind-blowing imagery, brings Van Gogh’s best work to life — including Sunflower, Irises, and The Starry Night — for a cathartic and liberating experience.” “Immersive Van Gogh ups the emotional ante,” Toronto Star stated, “I wondered: could projections of paintings on walls and floors be thrilling? The answer is ‘yes.’” Called a “completely new way of encountering art” by CTV and a “blockbuster digital experience that has taken the art world by storm” by Artnet News, the exhibit “cleverly embraces creativity,” according to Washington Post. The San Francisco Chronicle summed it up saying “It’s one hell of a way to wake up from our long pandemic art nap.”
The hour-long walk-through installation has been designed with health and safety as a priority. Admissions will be limited according to New York City’s capacity guidelines with touchless ticket-taking; temperature checks upon arrival; hand sanitizer stations and social distancing markers prominent throughout the venue; and digitally projected social distancing circles on the gallery floors to ensure appropriate spacing. All guests must wear a face covering at all times during their visit to Immersive Van Gogh.
Immersive Van Gogh was designed by Creator and Italian film producer Massimiliano Siccardi, with original, mood-setting music, both original and curated, by Italian multimedia Composer Luca Longobardi, who provided a score that combines experimental electronic music with pure, ethereal and simple-seeming piano. Vittorio Guidotti is the Art Director. Siccardi and Longobardi are both pioneers of immersive digital art installations in Europe, where they created the world-renowned Van Gogh, Starry Night exhibition, among others. With approximately 100 state-of-the-art projectors illuminating over the exhibit space, visitors to Immersive Van Gogh will be encircled from head-to-toe in Van Gogh’s brushstrokes and colors, including animated details from works such as Self Portrait with Felt Hat (1888), The Bed-room in Arles (1889), Irises (1889) and The Starry Night (1889).
Tickets for the exhibition are on-sale now online and by phone. Tickets range in price from $29.99 for kids to $99.99 for VIP Flex tickets, which comes with priority access, flexible admission, a limited-edition poster, a souvenir laminate and a van Gogh cushion. Basic timed tickets are $49.99. The New York location will be revealed at a virtual press event on Friday, April 23 at 10 am ET. To RSVP and receive a link to the press event, click here.
The new block of tickets will go on sale to the public Saturday, April 24 at 10 a.m. ET.
For more information about Immersive Van Gogh, visit this website or call. Follow the exhibition on social media at @goghnyc on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
About Vincent van Gogh
Legendary Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) is recognized as one of the world’s greatest and best loved artists. He was born in the Netherlands to his father, Theodorus van Gogh, and his mother, Anna Cornelia Carbentus, a moody artist whose love of nature, drawing and watercolors was passed on to her son. He worked at his uncle Cornelis’ art dealership when he had already been fluent in French, German and English, as well as his native Dutch. He fell in love with English culture when he was transferred to the Groupil Gallery in London in 1873.
During his short life he painted more than 2,000 artworks ranging from ordinary household items and self-portraits to surreal landscapes that inspire awe. Van Gogh was a post-Impressionist painter whose work — notable for its beauty, emotion and color — highly influenced expressionism in 20th-century art. He struggled with mental illness and remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his life.
He was tragically admitted to a psychiatric hospital after offering his severed ear to a woman at a local brothel. For hope, he turned to painting and nature, until one day when he went out to paint in the morning with a loaded pistol in his hand and reportedly shot himself in the chest. In his 37 years alive, Van Gogh only sold one painting, The Red Vineyards, to his brother Theo.
About the Creative Team
DAVID KORINS, Creative Director New York
David Korins is the award-winning Creative Director, Designer and Founder of his eponymous New York City based creative studio. In his two decades of creating omnidirectional experiences, he has, along with his expert team, reached hundreds of millions of people all over the world while helping the most influential brands, companies and individuals bring their stories to life. From stage to screen, museums to hospitality, experiential design to singular live events, Korins has traversed the landscape of world building and storytelling through almost every medium available. Korins created the worlds for the Tony Award-winning musicals Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen and Beetlejuice: The Musical. He has also designed the set for the musical Mrs. Doubtfire as well as over 20 additional Broadway shows. Among numerous TV credits, Korins is the Production Designer for the 91st Annual Academy Awards and Grease: Live!, for which he received an Emmy Award.
Collaborators include Bruno Mars, Elton John, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, Andrea Bocelli, Sia, and Takashi Murakami, and presented at venues such as Madison Square Garden, Coachella, Gagosian, Lollapalooza, SXSW, and Sotheby’s. Brand partnerships include the NFL, Twitter, Google, Spotify, YouTube, and Microsoft. As the Creative Director for the USC Shoah Foundation, he has led the organization’s rebranding efforts, the creation of several new experiences, and state of the art testimonials. In 2019, through an ongoing collaboration with Sotheby’s, Korins unveiled a unique exhibit at their New York City headquarters in celebration of the company’s 275th Anniversary. In addition, he designed the Time Square restaurant Bond 45. His work has earned him an Emmy Award, three Tony nominations, Drama Desk, Lortel Awards, three Henry Hewes Design Awards, and an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Design.
MASSIMILIANO SICCARDI, Creator
Massimiliano Siccardi studied at the London School of Contemporary Dance of London. But in 1990, he left the world of dance to begin a new journey in the world of video art. Siccardi quickly became the artistic force behind several visual mise-en-scène for choreographers around the world. He also created video scenographies for numerous prestigious festivals and galas around the world. He also re-constructed the video mapping of the Basilica di Giotto and for the Teatro Petruzzelli of Bari, where one of his permanent installation’s virtually reconstruct the frescoes of the Cupola. Siccardi is also a celebrated photographer and has had photo ex-hibitions in Spoleto and Rome, to name a few. He is professor of digital image elaboration at the Accademia di Comunicazione e Immagine of Rome. In 2012, Siccardi received the prestigious International Award “Romaindanza” for his talent in the visual work of dance theatre. Since 2012, he has been artist in residence at the Carrières de Lumières – Atelier des Lumières where he authored the mise-en-scène of numerous immersive shows. He is currently creating projects within Italy as well as New York, Berlin, Leipzig and Rome.
LUCA LONGOBARDI, Composer
Italian composer and pianist Luca Longobardi is a classically trained musician who incorporates the contemporary electronic music into his pieces. Born in 1976, Longobardi studied classical music in Italy and New York and went on to earn his doctorate in digital audio resto-ration in Rome in 2011. His works reveal a strong interaction between classical and contemporary music. The experience he has gained as a theatre musician has increased his interest in the relationship between sounds and spectacle; he has composed music for ballets and films and accompanied installations and experimental art productions (Atelier de Lumières – Paris, Carrière does Lumières – Baux-de-Provence, Kunstkraftwerk – Leipzig). At his multimedia performances and in his recordings, strong experimental electronic music meets pure, ethereal and simple-seeming piano playing that nevertheless relays deep emotions.
About the Producing Team
The producers of Immersive Van Gogh New York are Corey Ross and Svetlana Dvoretsky, working with Co-Producers Maria Shclover and Irina Shabshis. Together they founded Immersive ArtSpace NY, LP to bring Immersive Van Gogh to New York.
Corey Ross is the founder of Starvox Entertainment which has ranked in Profit Magazine’s Fastest growing Canadian companies for 5 years in a row. The company produces and man-ages cross-over performing arts shows and exhibition including the Art of Banksy in London, Canada, the USA, Taiwan, and Japan. He is also a co-founder at Lighthouse Immersive – a company producing the Immersive Van Gogh in 19 North American cities and Illusionarium in Toronto.
Svetlana Dvoretsky is the founder of Toronto’s Show One Productions and a proud recipient of the Order of York by the Government of Canada for her “significant role in arts and culture.” Show One Productions is leading presenter of high-profile international artists in classical music, theater and dance. She is a co-founder of Lighthouse Immersive and co-producer of Immersive Van Gogh.
Maria Shclover and Irina Shabshis are the co-founders of Maestro Immersive Art. Shclover founded Maestro Artist Management in 2004, Shabshis in 2005 and together they have presented more than 1,000 theatrical and classical music performances across the United States, including projects with Michel Legrand, Mikhail Baryshnikov, John Malkovich and more. In 2012, Shclover and Shabshis formed a non-profit organization, Cherry Orchard Festival Foundation, presenting an annual international theatrical festival to audiences in New York City and beyond.
