Digital Art: Beyond Van Gogh Exhibition

Date: 2024-08-12

August 2024, NEC Birmingham — 2-Month Exhibition

Entry: £26 per person

The famous immersive Van Gogh digital art experience — which has been hugely popular in the USA and Canada — came near our home in the UK, so we went to see it.

The NEC (National Exhibition Centre) is just 15 minutes from home by car, right next to Birmingham Airport. It is one of the UK's largest exhibition venues, with up to 20 halls hosting trade shows, concerts and events throughout the year. The site combines an international airport, train station, NEC, hotels and a shopping centre on one enormous campus — with parking for an astonishing 16,500 vehicles, connected to the halls by free shuttle buses.

As it was the school summer holidays, the trade show halls were quiet, with only two halls in operation. The adjacent hall was hosting a Titanic exhibition.

Tickets are timed entry. At £26 per person (approximately ¥4,800), it feels about right by UK standards — roughly what you'd pay for a coffee and cake in a London café.

Entry is by QR code scan at the door.

The Exhibition

You enter first into a space covering Van Gogh's life and history. Born in 1853, Van Gogh died at just 37. Famously, only one of his paintings sold during his lifetime — yet his work is now loved around the world.

After the biographical introduction, a small transitional space serves as an entry point into Van Gogh's world — before you step into the main room.

The main exhibition space is slightly larger than a tennis court. Large-scale projections cover every wall and the floor; seating is scattered throughout facing different directions. Van Gogh's paintings come alive all around you — you feel as though you are inside the paintings themselves. The works were created by world-class digital artists, and the music is an original commission.

It is a fundamentally different experience from a conventional art exhibition — rather than looking at paintings, you inhabit the artist's world. We found it genuinely moving.

Last year we attended the ABBA Voyage concert in London — digital avatars of ABBA performing live on stage. Digital art and performance is a genuinely new form of entertainment, and one that seems to be growing rapidly. We will keep an eye out for future events of this kind.