I didn’t expect the first immersive artist show following Beyond Van Gogh on Long Island to spotlight the greatest of the French Impressionists—and forerunner to the abstract expressionism that exploded in the mid-20th century—Claude Monet. But here we are—although, since Beyond Monet alternates in the same space with the ongoing Van Gogh show, it’s likely not nearly as popular.

 

Similarly to Beyond Van Gogh (and, I would guess, other immersive artist shows), the multimedia Beyond Monet gives viewers a new way of looking at an artist and his—it’s always his—preoccupations, usually by lining up, on the walls of the space, reproductions of paintings that are visually similar, then morphing into other works. Then there’s replicating the “look” of the settings of Monet’s best-known works, like the gardens and water lilies near his home in Giverny, the cathedral in Rouen or London’s Parliament buildings. 

 

The visual motifs, as in the Van Gogh show, provide a sumptuous array of colors, transforming into other subjects that might or might not look familiar, based on one’s knowledge of Monet’s oeuvre. Ambient music—at times sounding like early ‘70s Pink Floyd—accompanies the show; unlike Van Gogh, there are no voices intoning Monet’s commentaries on art but rather simply the words thrown onto the walls, in the original French and in English translations. As I said in my review of Beyond Van Gogh, there’s a kind of Cliff Notes effect to this visualization of an immortal artist’s life and art, with little immersive sense, so to speak, of Monet’s artistic and historic importance. 

 

Of course, standing in front of the artist’s actual artworks is always more satisfying, and that also goes for Monet, whose masterly and massive Water Lilies canvases, which take up two galleries of the breathtaking Musée de l’Orangerie  in Paris, along with a large gallery in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, might be considered some of the first truly immersive paintings.

 

Unlike the Van Gogh show, Beyond Monet does not include a virtual-reality experience, which makes it somewhat less immersive than it should be. Still, if this sort of thing is up your alley, it's is a pleasant way to spend an hour.