Immersive Van Gogh in Dallas, TX

To celebrate our anniversary this year, Austin and I planned a date night in downtown Dallas at the world-famous Immersive Van Gogh exhibit. As a big fan of impressionist painters, this exhibit was a must-see for me!

Whether you’re an art nerd who wants to experience Van Gogh’s work in a new way, a group of friends looking for fun things to do in Dallas, or a couple looking for creative date night ideas, Immersive Van Gogh definitely delivers. Here are some of my favorite pictures from our experience in this incredible art installation.

Know Before You Gogh

The venue for Immersive Van Gogh is an art gallery called Lighthouse Dallas located at 507 S Harwood St. Its internal architecture is perfect for the installation, which projects larger than life versions of Van Gogh’s paintings across the walls and floor of each room.

Ticket prices for the experience vary from $40 – $50 depending on whether you visit during peak hours. If you can make the off-peak tickets work for your schedule, I highly recommend it! It will mean smaller crowds and save you $10 that you can use to buy some Starry Night socks at the gift shop.

For anyone with concerns about Covid-19 exposure, the exhibit makes it very easy to social distance. Guests have plenty of room to sit or stand six feet apart from other parties throughout the whole experience.

Experiencing Immersive Van Gogh

The Immersive Van Gogh exhibit honestly exceeded my expectations, which were already pretty high! I knew that there would be paintings projected onto the walls, but what I didn’t anticipate was that elements from the paintings would be animated and set to music.

The dramatic transitions between works of art include brushstrokes across the wall, flowers shooting up from the ground, people popping in and out of paintings and candlelights flickering.

There are three rooms where guests can watch the animated projections on a loop that lasts about 35 minutes. We arrived in the middle of a loop, so we stayed for the full length of the next one. In total, including our trips to the restroom and gift shop afterward, we were probably at the exhibit for about 2 hours.

Each of the three rooms has a unique seating arrangement. The first room is small and offers wooden benches. The second room is enormous and offers folding chairs and stools spaced six feet apart with circles projected onto the floor. The last room has standing room only, but it has a unique mirror sculpture at the center where the light and patterns from the Van Gogh projections look especially interesting.

I recommend exploring all three rooms to experience the paintings from several points of view, and then choosing your favorite to watch the entire cycle while seated.