Claude Monet: The Immersive Experience

Last Updated on March 30, 2024

Intriguing but Tacky, this Immersive Experience Misses the Mark

“Violet maniacs” is what Monet and his impressionistic posé were dubbed when they began using purple for the shadows in their paintings. Upon entering the first room of Claude Monet: The Immersive Experience I am tempted to give the curators the same name. Purple-pink and acid-green lights illuminate Monet’s Garden at Giverny, reimagining it as a miniature rave den with information panels. The fake-flowered bridge, digital pond and astroturf lawn are pretty in a deliberately tacky sort of way, but fail utterly in immersing the visitor in the soothing greenery of Monet’s “Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies”.

Claude Monet: The Immersive Experience spans across five rooms in a converted warehouse on Brick Lane in East London. Each room offers a type of ‘immersion’ into the life and works of the famous French painter, whether through lifesize recreations, light projections, art creation or virtual reality (VR).

A window from the lurid-lit garden investigates the next room: an IKEA-supplied imitation of Monet’s workroom. The walls are lined with copies of Monet’s art which are visibly much worse than the originals, and thus not worth looking at. The execution lacks commitment and consequently feels inescapably contrived. It is not all that inspiring or interesting to look at an old-timey wooden desk, lamp, and wicker chair which represent only a passing semblance to the real thing. Both rooms feel like filler space for an exhibition with not quite enough to say.

The third space – a square hall with a cuboid column in the middle – contains the digital projections, a show approximately 43 minutes long. Here, Monet’s artworks are blown up and projected across the walls as constellations of light ripple across the floors. Landscapes melt together like watercolour splotches, accompanied by gentle classical music (composed by Michelino Bisceglia). It is a relaxing atmosphere; one must only resist taking videos at every transition. Sometimes it is falling leaves and petals which mark changes of scene; other times colourful pixels rain across the walls. 

The glaring problem is that The Boiler House is too small a venue for such massive light projections. Monet’s works are often best observed at a distance whereupon his distinct pixels of colour, say, blue and pink, can blur together into purple. This is simply impossible within the space and therefore spoils the impact of both the original works and the light projections.

After the immersive experience, there follows a room which offers paper and crayons with which one can colour in one’s own Monet masterpiece. I liked the intention of encouraging visitors to create their own art, and it is charming for families with young children. 

The final room offers a seated virtual reality experience, for which visitors must pay an additional £3 (although the sign advertises it at £5). The experience invites one to “Become Claude Monet” in a ten-minute journey through important locations in the artist’s life, including his workroom, the poppy fields, the river Thames, and his garden at Giverny. The duplicated inclusion of his room and garden renders the downstairs recreations even more useless, particularly as the garden is once again depicted in a superficial pop art palette. 

Intriguing, but ineffective is the overall theme for this Immersive Monet Experience. The exhibit hits all the right buzzwords – VR, digital art, immersive experience, Claude Monet – but misses the target of truly venerating the artist’s work. Better to seek out the real thing in a more traditional art gallery, or enjoy art intentionally crafted for an immersive, digital environment.

Claude Monet: The Immersive Experience
The Boiler House
152 Brick Lane
London
E1 6RU

Tickets for Claude Monet: The Immersive Experience can be purchased here.