Klimt: The Immersive Experience – little more than a ‘kaleidoscope of digital reproductions’
Organisers claim this show ‘democratises’ great art and makes it ‘accessible’

In the past decade, British art lovers have been invited to take part in a new kind of spectacle, said Hettie O’Brien in The Guardian: the “immersive experience”. Broadly speaking, this amounts to a form of “installation art that uses technology such as augmented and virtual reality to ‘immerse’ viewers, merging the physical world with digital experience”.
Such events “vary hugely in scope” – from “elaborate, hi-tech” affairs using holograms or VR headsets to simpler, “Instagram-friendly” projections of paintings by deceased artists. Because immersive installations don’t rely on “rare” physical objects, “they can be reproduced on an almost industrial scale” in multiple locations anywhere in the world: the idea is that people are able see world-class art without leaving their home towns.
If you want to experience one of these installations for yourself, a new one devoted to the paintings of Gustav Klimt has recently opened in East London. Its organisers claim that the show is designed to “democratise” great art and make it “accessible”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Experience starts “conventionally and unobjectionably” in a corridor, said Rupert Christiansen in The Daily Telegraph, where information panels explain Klimt’s life and stylistic development; visitors then proceed “to a high-ceilinged central chamber”, where, for about 30 minutes, details from his works, including The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, are projected onto the walls along with “a lot of amoebic squiggles and evanescent starbursts”.
If you’re so minded, you can, for an extra £5, then don a VR headset and spend another ten minutes gazing at “more of the same”, but with yet more “gimmicky deconstructions” of the artist’s stylistic tics. And that’s about it.
It’s “easy to be snobbish” about entertainments of this sort – but it’s the sheer poverty of the experience that troubles me. For all the talk of cutting-edge tech, it amounts to little more than a “kaleidoscope of digital reproductions” of famous Klimt paintings, reminiscent of the light shows that artists were experimenting with as long ago as the 1960s.
Immersive experiences aren’t intrinsically meritless, said Laura Freeman in The Times. Elsewhere in London, a Frida Kahlo show “does something genuinely original” with its source material. But alas, what we have here is merely a cynical exercise in parting punters from their cash: a family ticket, for two adults and two children, will set you back no less than £67.60 – and for a package that includes the VR headsets and a “free” poster, this rises to £130.60; the online booking fees are “a punchline to an already bad joke”.
And what do you get for all that dosh: “I’ve had screensavers more watchable” than the “squiffy and out-of-focus” projections here. If you’re scouting around for an enjoyable cultural outing with the children this summer, avoid this “rum” deal like the plague.
The Boiler House, London E1 (klimtexpo.com). Until 30 September
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Having a mayor: Starmer's struggles with devolved leaders
Talking Point Andy Burnham made public criticisms of the Labour government policies without specifically naming Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves
-
Why is Nasa facing a crisis?
Today's Big Question Trump administration proposes 25% cut to national space agency's budget in 'extinction-level event'
-
The 50-year battle for Western Sahara
The Explainer UK is latest country to back Moroccan plan to end decades-long dispute with Algerian-backed Polisario Front
-
Bryan Burrough's 6 favorite books about Old West gunfighters
Feature The Texas-raised author recommends works by T.J. Stiles, John Boessenecker, and more
-
Book reviews: 'Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference' and 'Is a River Alive?'
Feature A rallying cry for 'moral ambition' and the interwoven relationship between humans and rivers
-
A city of culture in the high Andes
The Week Recommends Cuenca is a must-visit for those keen to see the 'real Ecuador'
-
Green goddess salad recipe
The Week Recommends Avocado can be the creamy star of the show in this fresh, sharp salad
-
Ancient India: living traditions – 'ethereal and sensual' exhibition
The Week Recommends Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are explored in show that remains 'remarkably compact'
-
6 well-preserved homes built in the 1930s
Feature Featuring a restored 1934 colonial in Arizona and a cold-storage warehouse turned loft in New York City
-
Things in Nature Merely Grow: memoir of 'harsh beauty' after loss
The Week Recommends Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li's 'devastating' memoir explores the deaths of her two sons
-
Sirens: entertaining satire on the lives of the ultra-wealthy stars Julianne Moore
The Week Recommends This 'blackly comic affair' unfurls at a 'breakneck speed'