CHAPTER 19 — Lady Stardust (2)

Central Park.

The Met.

The interior of the Annenberg Galleries was a suspended, artistic silence where the infamous New York Minute ceased, a place where time held its breath for the timeless art displayed within. Here, the Met displayed its grandest collection of colonial art in a neoclassical sanctuary of monumental intimacy across a suite of forty-five galleries with 700 works of art.

To walk through the Annenberg Galleries is to walk through history itself; it was a tour of colonial power, a heritage of the European Empire from the 1300s to the 1800s. The experience was a narrative made possible by the Met’s endowment, enabling a renovation six years in the making, through which the Met’s European curator rehung almost every image.

Now, in an isolated, intimate space, the Met’ director, Juliana Vaughan, had done something no museum in the world had yet attempted.

A projection-mapped display of the Met’s Vincent van Gogh works.

The concept began when she was approached by Panasonic, though she had not imagined that the technology was mature enough. This was because authenticity required twenty-six to fifty digital projectors with ultra-resolution laser-mosaics that worked in tandem, adding the illusion of depth and texture that was so central to the grandmaster’s work. To create such a project mapping, the Met had to risk its collection by allowing Immersive Light and Magic, the conceptual company responsible for the technology, to deep-scan and 3-D map the museum’s priceless originals.

The scan took months, but Juliana simply felt that there was something missing, yet could not place her finger on the texture of the impasto—until she heard the song.

Music.
Not just any music, but an ambient song, the sound of each location as the painting depicted, or was painted.

And in the exhibit’s finale, she would have the visitors realise that this painter, this world-renowned genius, had not been appreciated or recognised, that he died while making peace with failure.

At 7:15, the newly rearranged wing of the gallery was closed, and her staff was reorganised to receive tonight’s guests.

Evelyn Chambers, the Cultural Affairs Commissioner.

Jean-Jacques de Cambacérès, the French Consul.

Hugo Maarten Klijn, Vice-Director of The Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.

Diane Mirabelle, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue USA.

Lizia Bailey Hearst, Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar, is heir to the Hearst fortune.

Betye de Phelps, Director of MoMA, who had loaned them Starry Starry Night.

Sir Justin Woodhouse, CEO of Universal Music.
Trent Davis, CEO of Sony BMG, and his aide, Director Frederick Curon, a dear friend and the enabler of tonight’s festivities.
And many others, the heirs, patriarchs and peers of families that Juliana only recognised by their contributions to the arts. Her lack of familiarity was a necessity; for someone in her position, it was cogent that she knew her donors, while also limiting her knowledge of where they had found their fortunes.

This was not a red-carpet event, though the corporations involved nonetheless forced their entourages of camera-wielding sycophants into her private Showcase. For the pre-show, Vaughan offered no resistance or opinion toward these ghoulish parasites of the mass media, because they, like bottom feeders on a riverbed, provided an essential function.

However, past the hallowed halls of Gallery 822, none were allowed to peek, lest their press passes to the Met’s celebrity events were forever abjured.

At 7:45, later than she preferred, the guests reported that they were sufficiently stuffed with expensive canapes and were ready for the time of their lives.

At 8:00, like a train of school children, they entered the exhibit.

With relish, with pleasure, and with quiet expectation, she watched their eyes grow from mild wonder to incredulity, to open-mouthed disbelief.

Cypresses, textured and enlarged, spanning some five meters high to twelve meters wide, seamlessly stretched across walls, pillars, doorways and even the floor, greeted them at every turn. Thanks to the multitude of projectors, there were no shadows to be seen. They were inside the paintings now, living inside the grand master’s head.

The first of the ten rooms was Wheat Field with Cypresses.
Within Juliana’s sorcerous realm, her guests wandered without borders through spaces uninhibited by physicality, listening to the authentic rustling of ultra-high definition audio sourced from a sunny afternoon from the very place the painting was born.

At 8:10, they entered the next room. Stark, sterile, white, containing only the painting itself, a short description, and the audience.

“Good god, Juliana.” Hugo, Director of Amsterdam, could not help but shake her hand “Any price, my love. We want this same technology at any price. I will find the space.”

“Mister Simon is the man responsible.” Juliana pointed to a demure young man with reddened eyes standing near the corner, nursing a flute of Bordeaux champagne. “His work is ours for the next six months, but you are free to negotiate for either rental or re-creation once the Met is done.”

Juliana watched her protege cower as the bigwigs marched on him with shining eyes and big smiles. She hid her satisfaction by biting the interior of her lower lip. Rather than the limelight, she preferred to bring others into it.

The next man to approach was her old friend, Frederick Curon.

“Eppie is ready.” The man raised his glass in a toast. “Woodhouse is going to lose his mind hahaha…”

“You are the pettiest, most obsessive person I know.” Juliana rolled her eyes. “So what if Woodhouse signed those two young DJs from Connecticut. Was that really worth this much spite?”

“They were god damn geniuses.” Curon’s beard rustled against his turtleneck sweater. Juliana could only admire her friend’s courage to show up to her party wearing an attire suitable for casual dinners at a non-exclusive country club. “They could have flourished under me, like Eppie. They would have made the best electronica in the world.”

Juliana sighed, refusing the waiter’s offer of water. “I believe you, for what it’s worth. Yet, we must move on. Let’s hope your songbird doesn’t choke.”

The second room was The Flowering Orchard.

For this room, Juliana had contacted a friend from the House of Mouse and borrowed, under a strict NDA, a number of Smellitizers. When the Met’s competitors reproduced the displays, it would not include her curated sounds and smells—that would be their problem to solve, or improve upon.

The third room was Roses.

The fourth was Irises.

The fifth was Sunflowers.

The sixth was Shoes, with the room suddenly filled with the stark scent of oils, leather, and trace mildew.

The seventh was “Corridor in the Asylum,” a stark painting from when the artist admitted himself to the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The room smelled like antiseptic.

The eighth room had the audience audibly gasp.

It was the Met’s title piece, Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat.

And there was something explicit to be said about an ultra-HD laser-mapped, textured, Ken Burns slow-moving visage of the man’s portrait, six feet tall and four feet across, replicated on every wall, staring unblinking at the audience. After the cold colours of the Asylum, there was something so vivid and bold about the portrait’s palette—a bold summation of sunburst yellow and oranges set against Van Gogh’s famous blue and green teal, bringing the portrait to life.

Her guests did not stay for long.
There was calm in the self-portrait, but also accusation.
The grandmaster’s interiority was visceral.

In the ninth room, against the portrait, they convened.

“The tenth room is a timed experience, a summation of the former,” she explained to her guests, all of whom were now drunk on art. “We also have a special guest—”

She looked at Curon, who looked back smugly.

“—and no, it is not Vincent, I am sorry to say.”

Her audience laughed on cue.

“When you are ready,” Juliana also hoped that their little bird would not choke. To ensure their success, she had even arranged a pressure-free environment. “We shall proceed.”

One by one, her flock of art-touched connoisseurs shuffled into the final room.

Juliana followed, a mother goose with her flock of curious goslings.

The room was dark.

The room smelled like the countryside.
The wind, reproduced by specialised equipment, made them shiver.

In the centre projection, a line of words materialised.

“I also need a starry night with Cypresses or—perhaps above a field of ripe wheat”
Conversation with Theo van Gogh, April 9, 1888.

Stroke by stroke, the most famous painting in the world began to materialise.

A guitar began to play, perfectly in sync with the brush strokes.

Then a thin, ethereal voice, one that belonged to the underworld, delivered a dirge through the speakers.

“Starry Starry Night…”

The voice sent a shock through the room, conjuring shivers throughout their collective body. The French Consul looks about from left to right, bewildered, questioning the source of the voice. To her right, a triumphant Frederick stared at Woodhouse, who looked suddenly lost in the dimness of the exhibit.

Stolen story; please report.

With texture, the song moved from verse to verse, caressing the fabric-covered walls, slathering on the impasto strokes. The girl’s voice grieved for an artist she had never met. Her voice grieved for them all.

One by one, the paintings came to life. Every work in every other room. The fields, the flowers, the asylum, the self-portrait.

By the third verse, the spectral elegy pierced even Juliana’s defences. Her mind, usually a tightly-knit ball of interwoven thoughts, began to unwind. Her artistic fancy, long caged by more critical theory than was healthy for any sane individual, was suddenly left to wander. Like the first time she had heard the song, she merely listened.

No sycophants.
No cameras.
No critics.

The Chief Curator of the Met was free to simply listen and absorb, to inhale the notes. As a long-time teacher, she had forgotten just how much she could absorb as a student.

The music faded.
The lyrics said they would not understand, but her audience now understood.

It was time for the final room.

Juliana gestured at her black-clad staff, then gestured again until she caught their eye, for their ears had been utterly arrested by the infectious sentiment of the song. With a few clicks on their wired remotes, swirling lights painted a path to the exit.

Juliana led the procession.