What to know for Van Gogh show coming to Kansas City. But some details ‘super-secret’

Vincent van Gogh is coming to Kansas City.

A national touring installment called “Immersive Van Gogh,” featuring large-scale projections of works by the Dutch master, will land here Dec. 1-Feb. 6. Tickets already are being sold ($40 and up at kansascityvangogh.com), but there is a catch.

The venue is a secret.

Lighthouse Immersive, which is bringing the installation to the United States after successes in Paris and Toronto, says on its website that “Immersive Van Gogh” will come to “a super-secret location in the heart of Kansas City.” The company is using a similar tactic in many other cities.

Corey Ross, the show’s producer, admits the secret-venue gambit is something of a double-barreled publicity stunt, raising interest now as well as when the site is ultimately announced a month or two before the show opens.

“Does everyone want to know whether it’s in Kansas or Missouri?” he asked. “Or is it they actually want to know exactly where it is?”

The location will be in Missouri, Ross confirmed, but he said it’s probably not somewhere you might guess.

“It’s going to be a conversion of a building from another purpose,” he said. “Don’t expect it to be in a museum or established place where folks have gone before.”

That presumably rules out Union Station, where most major traveling exhibitions such as this appear.

Ross volunteered that in Toronto, “Immersive Van Gogh” used the former printing press building of the Toronto Star. When told there is just such a building in Kansas City’s Crossroads that was formerly owned by The Star, he went silent, then changed the subject.

That is hardly a confirmation by Ross, who might have been having fun with a probing reporter. But, who knows?

Wherever “Immersive Van Gogh” is displayed, it will be unique to Kansas City among the 19 U.S. cities scheduled to have the show this year. The 360-degree walk-thru experience set to music consists of images and video projected onto the walls, ceilings and floors, but because every venue is different, every show is different.

Ross said the creator, Massimiliano Siccardi, designs installations specific to venues.

“Each city has its own identity and its own execution,” Ross said. “The music is the same and the overall concept is the same. It’s really the adaptation to the building and the architecture of the building that varies from city to city. And then we try within and around the gallery to create something that’s unique to the city.”

“Immersive Van Gogh” will appear in multiple cities simultaneously through the summer, fall and into next year. Moreover, it’s not the only such show touring the United States.

It seems Van Gogh has become big business in 2021. So don’t confuse “Immersive Van Gogh” with “Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience,” “Beyond Van Gogh: An Immersive Experience” or “Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition.” Or, for that matter, with “Van Gogh Alive.”

The Washington Post reports of confused customers asking for refunds after buying tickets to the wrong immersive show.

Of the five touring shows, only “Immersive Van Gogh” — which is pretty much the granddaddy of the Van Gogh shows — is scheduled to come to Kansas City.

“I think there are a number of different companies that have decided to do this based on our success and Massimiliano’s success in France,” Ross said. “You’ll notice there’s not a single other company that will tell you the name of the artist. … My belief is that artists create art. I don’t just want to see a projection show. I want to see a projection show by Massimiliano, who is the best in this business in the world.”

Ross calls Siccardi “the Steven Spielberg of immersive art installations.” The Italian studied at the London Contemporary Dance School but in 1990 switched to video art. His major claim to fame was his Van Gogh show in Paris that was seen by more than 2 million visitors and was featured in the Netflix show “Emily in Paris.” It got the Instagram stamp of approval from the show’s star, Lily Collins.

Siccardi reconstructs some of the 400 images of Van Gogh’s paintings that Lighthouse Immersive has licensed from museums around the world.

“It becomes this sort of stream-of-consciousness narrative,” Ross said, “and his departure point for creating the show is he wanted to try to imagine what flashed before Van Gogh’s eyes in the moments before he passed away.”

For example, Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City measures 30 by 36 inches, but the image might be projected 20 feet tall during “Immersive Van Gogh.”

The concept appears to be appealing: Many dates have sold out around the country, and several Kansas City showings have limited availability — even if customers don’t know where they will need to go to see the installation.

Ross said tickets everywhere are being sold on a limited basis because of the pandemic. He doesn’t expect social distancing to be necessary by the time “Immersive Van Gogh” reaches Kansas City, however, so additional tickets might go on sale at a later date.