For several months, I have seen advertisements for "Van Gogh in Detroit". I have also seen ads for "Immersive Van Gogh". I knew I didn't need to be part of the immersive experience (it feels like a watered down/dumbed down exhibit), but I wasn't sure I was up to the task of taking in an actual exhibit of Van Gogh either. So I asked my artistic child if she would like to go, and she didn't even hesitate to answer "yes".
Occasionally I feel overwhelmed with the idea of doing something. I think it comes from having done a lot of things and knowing that they aren't always as easy or as fun as they seem. I've been to art museums before, and I always feel like I need to read about everything and give it its due course, but at the same time it's so tedious to read everything. And having never been to the Detroit Institute of Art, I wasn't sure about traffic or parking. Armed with my trusty girl though, I figured it would all turn out okay.
The traffic was light, and we found a parking spot within minutes. When we walked up to the ticket counter, I was asked if I lived in the tri-county aka Wayne, Oakland, or Macomb counties. Yes, yes I do. I live about a quarter mile inside the boundaries of Wayne county--it maybe be the wealthiest part of the county, but it COUNTS! ;-) Thank you very cheap admission cost to see the exhibit. We were handed a booklet and sent upstairs.
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I gotta say it now. It was the best art museum experience I've ever had, and I give full credit to the DIA curators of the exhibit. It was just long enough that it wasn't overwhelming, and just short enough that it left us wanting more. Turns out, the DIA was the first museum in the United States to buy a Van Gogh...and we read this underneath the description of almost every Van Gogh work. The bought a self-portrait and paved the way for other museums in the United States to buy them as well. The curators gathered so many works of Van Gogh from all over the world for the 100th anniversary of the acquisition, and being there, I felt so lucky to be a part of it.
We learned about Van Gogh's sister-in-law who saw the value of the paintings after Van Gogh's (and his brother's) deaths and began showing the paintings around the world, hoping to sell them. It was a hard sell at first, but she persisted with some innovative marketing tactics. Eventually the world caught on.
The exhibit "Van Gogh in America" was initially supposed to take place pre-COVID, but with everything being shut down, it was postponed, and for our benefit. The curators used that extra time to acquire more paintings, finally totally 74 works in the DIA for a few short months. I'm not sure I really appreciated now special this exhibit was until John told me about a nurse he knows in Scranton, Pennsylvania who drove all the way to Detroit to see the exhibition!
I was so touched with all of the self-portraits. Van Gogh didn't have the money to pay models so he used himself. And used other things of his that are also viewed as self-portraits. We see his bedroom, or a pair of shoes, or his chair, all reflections of him.
And naturally his best work all came from the final months of his life before he tried (a bit unsuccessfully) to kill himself (he ended up dying for days after he shot himself). Glo and I were each drawn to different styles that we liked, but per usual, I stood back and let her point out things that I would never see or appreciate myself.
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| There were several landscapes like this. I loved the curves. |
On the way home, I put it "Starry, Starry Night", sung by Don Mclean. Glo had to ask me how I even knew the song, and I relayed to her the experience I had in sixth grade learning about Van Gogh and hearing the song for the first time. We then came home and watched the Doctor Who episode about Van Gogh. It was all very touching and reminds me of all the beautiful creatives whose talents and lives bring such beauty to us now.
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