AMSTERDAM—Consolation for disappointed art lovers who arrive in this city and realize that the Van Gogh Museum is closed for renovation: Follow the red braided rope.
It’s affixed to the corner of the old museum building, leading away from the construction site and stretches to Museumplein, Amsterdam’s great museum square.
The red rope is part of Amsterdam’s most public Van Gogh installation, the Van Gogh Mile. In place until the Van Gogh Museum reopens in spring 2013, it connects the Van Gogh museum with the site of the temporary Van Gogh exhibition, the Hermitage museum, 2.2 kilometers across the historic center of Amsterdam. The rope is the most visible part of a multidisciplinary art walk designed by Henk Schut for the Van Gogh Museum. The walk guides would-be visitors through Van Gogh’s life, thoughts and travels, while directing them to his famous paintings.
“By following the rope, you can let go and you can trust us,” said Mr. Schut, whose installation is inspired by the 900 letters Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo.
A Van Gogh Mile app can be downloaded from a free WiFi spot close to the start of the tour and is supported by iPhones, iPads and Android-based phones.
The first digital installment of the tour is activated at the head of the fountain basin on the Museum Square, just in front of the “IamAmsterdam” sign. A tap on the device and the same place appears on the screen. As if looking through a camera, the monuments and buildings of the Museumplein move as the user moves the device. A sweep of the device downward shows the scene as an expanse of sunflowers in bloom.
“There are moments of poetic license to synthesize, to be inspired by his letters,” said Mr. Schut.
The augmented reality software transposes the courtyard of an old sanitarium in the south of France where Van Gogh spent some time into the inner courtyard of the Hermitage museum.
At a stop along the route in front of the Rijkmuseum, the user flies (with the help of their digital device and some imagination) through an open window to see a Rembrandt painting. An audio clip of a reading of one of the artist’s letters describing his reaction to Rembrandt’s art comes through the headphones.
The audio for the tour is all from Van Gogh’s letters, and is in either English or Dutch. Rather than explain the visual experiences, the snippets provide atmosphere.
David Kat, who co-created the app, describes Van Gogh’s letters used in the tour as “handwritten, sketch-like, quick thoughts.”
A third component of the tour ensures that not only smart-phone users benefit from the Van Gogh Mile. Loudspeakers hanging from trees, posts and house-fronts along the rope’s route broadcast more of Van Gogh’s letters. Other public installations, such as a picture frame bearing one of Van Gogh’s musings about art near the Amstel Church, are strewn along the path to be discovered by those who take their time in looking around. By having walkers looking upward at a rope instead of downward at a map, Mr. Schut hopes to make the audience discover Amsterdam the way Van Gogh himself would have on his many solitary walks.
“It is a connection between looking and walking,” said Mr. Schut.
The detour from the Van Gogh Museum to the Van Gogh art at the Hermitage Museum, with its fragmented audio, fantastical images and physical installations is designed to inspire engagement with the artist, not provide biographical information on his life, explained Mr. Schut.
There are already plenty of sources for that.
IHT Rendezvous: The Rope, the App and Van Gogh in Amsterdam
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IHT Rendezvous: The Rope, the App and Van Gogh in Amsterdam
