The Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields is opening the nation’s first permanent multi-sensory exhibition in a museum this month.
Attendees can see Vincent van Gogh favorites — complete with original van Gogh pieces — in a not-so-typical museum experience.
The multi-sensory experience, THE LUME Indianapolis, opens July 27.
The exhibit will be the largest continuous exhibition space in the museum’s 137-year history.
Close to 3,000 moving images of his paintings will be set to a classical musical score, transporting attendees’ senses into the art itself.
THE LUME Indianapolis is being created by Australian-based Grande Experiences and will occupy the museum’s entire fourth floor with nearly 30,000 square feet of immersive digital art.
Grande Experiences company founder Bruce Peterson reimagined touring exhibitions 15 years ago by pioneering advanced multi-sensory technology to engage audiences with compelling storytelling techniques within a unique exhibition experience.
“The cultural scene is vastly changing as visitors demand new experiences," Peterson said. "We have been at the forefront of this movement globally as our popular exhibitions have quickly moved from artifact-based to multimedia to multi-sensory and now to very experiential.”
He said many more new audiences are being reached through this style of experience.
"We are engaging new audiences to appreciate the arts in a different way, and we know from our work internationally that it will encourage more people to visit places like Newfields with renewed appreciation," he said.
THE LUME Indianapolis will feature nearly 150 high-definition projectors that can transform two-dimensional paintings into a three-dimensional world, and projections will be displayed from floor to ceiling.
THE LUME’s grand opening will be the first time guests will be able to experience a digital gallery of this scale in the United States.
The art exhibition is made possible through funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.
Among the most famous artists in history, van Gogh is known for Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London) and The Starry Night (1889, The Museum of Modern Art, New York), both of which will be key highlights of the experience.
Guests also will be invited to see Newfields’ own iconic painting by van Gogh, Landscape at Saint-Rémy (1889), in the IMA galleries before or after they experience van Gogh’s paintings come to life in the exhibition.
THE LUME Indianapolis is an experience for both children and art enthusiasts. A retail section will be available as well as food and beverages.
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Tickets for THE LUME Indianapolis are $25 for adults, $17 for ages 6 to 17 and free for ages 5 and under.
For members, the costs are $20 for adults, $13 for ages 6 to 17 and free for ages 5 and under.
General admission tickets do not include THE LUME.
The museum is located at 4000 N. Michigan Road, Indianapolis.
For information, visit discovernewfields.org/LUME.
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