New York museum’s inauguration show brings Klimt works to life

NEW YORK (Reuters): An immersive exhibition takes visitors on a journey in the depths of the arts of Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt with his masterpieces in New York now with the inauguration exhibition of a new museum that combines technology, art and music.

“Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion,” which opened today, enfolds visitors in 30-foot (9-meter) high images of his works in the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank building in Manhattan, now the 33,000-square-foot Hall des Lumières.

A version of Klimt’s most famous work, “The Kiss,” painted in 1907-8 during the height of his golden period, seemingly drips off the new museum’s marble walls onto the floor.

“When you put this not on the canvas but on the wall, you can see it’s like a new world every time,” said Gianfranco Iannuzzi, the year-long show’s creative director.

“You are not in front of something like a cinema screen or in a museum like a painting, but you are inside and you have a different kind of situation with the way you look, but also hear and also move around,” he added. “All of this is a special… sensitive and emotional experience.”

Iannuzzi, who created the “Van Gogh, Starry Night” show currently at the Atelier des Lumières in Paris, hopes such exhibitions will make traditional artworks more popular.

“It’s very important to open the art and the culture to a large audience,” he said.

New York’s new digital art center is jointly owned and operated by French museum manager Culturespaces and IMG, a global events, sports and talent management company.