Within the artistic atmosphere of Florence where I have been able to find such diverse and similar art exhibitions at the same time, where every day there is a new museum to discover or a different gallery to go to, I found an exhibition that I can only describe with one word: alive.

Van Gogh Alive Experience is an exhibition held inside the desacralized church of Santo Stefano al Ponte very close to the Old Bridge in the center of Florence, for the simple fact of being an exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh I felt it was something that I should not lose.

I know the basics about the artist life, and how he found in art a means of healing or perhaps a continuous therapy over the years; an artist who, like many, was not properly recognized in his time because of many factors including the intensity with which he lived and how he reflected this fact in his production. I also know some of his works and I could even say that I consider some of them my favorites; but I had not experienced his work the way I did in this exhibition.

The exhibition showcases Van Gogh’s most famous works by means of projectors with high resolution images that turn the space into a complete experience, living the contrast of being present in a place that is known as a church and has the architecture of it, but feels like an artistic work is very interesting. I could feel inside the paintings of Vincent thanks to visual and audio stimulation, I could see myself lost betweenThe Starry Nightand The Sunflowers, and to a certain extent I seemed to understand a little more about the world of the famous, but always distant, Vincent Van Gogh.

I find the mixture between the classic and the considered contemporary very stimulating, the conversion of the spaces presenting completely different atmospheres to those pre-conceived; the production of art as a complete experience and not only as a visual pleasure. I have always been an art lover in all its expressions, but I recognize that before I did not fully understand the fact of “living” art and I cannot find a better way to explain it than through my experience in this exhibition: alive.

I fully recommend living this experience and…is there a better place to do it than in Florence?