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Videomapping on the walls of the museum’s central hall
- The activities, which fall under the heading #laluzdelapintura (The Light of Painting), are being held between Wednesday 15 and Sunday 19 May.
This year, International Museum Day (18 May) coincides with the Long Night of Museums, so the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum will be open from 10:00 until 01:00 the following night, with free admission, and an exceptional range of exhibitions on offer. In addition to the permanent collection, visitors can enjoy the Balthus and Amar Kanwar exhibitions, which are soon to finish, and the special displays Pioneras (Pioneers – Women of the Russian Avant-Garde), Descubriendo a Caravaggio (Discovering Caravaggio), Realidad y devoción (Reality and Devotion) and Doña Francisquita, Una mujer de zarzuela (A Woman from the Zarzuela).
For the third year running, Endesa is sponsoring the range of activities under the heading #laluzdelapintura, which are running from Wednesday 15 May (the San Isidro festival in Madrid). The exciting novelty for the 2019 event is videomapping: a massive display including huge projections, on the walls of the museum’s central hall, of Van Gogh’s fields series, Mondrian’s line drawings and Van der Ast's depictions of nature. A set of movements and effects allow the audience to see these masterpieces in a completely different light, from a totally new angle. The fabulous quality and advanced technology reveal details and perspectives which cannot be discerned in the real-life paintings due to their size.
Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shells and Insects, by Balthasar van der Ast, “Les Vessenots” in Auvers, by Vincent van Gogh, and New York City, 3, by Piet Mondrian, also head the virtual reality experience that is now available at the museum. Using VR goggles, audiences can actually step into these three paintings in the permanent collection, and move around them in a three-dimensional space.
This is the second time which the Thyssen, in partnership with Endesa, has offered this experience as part of the #entrarenelcuadro (Step into the Painting) project. Users can move around freely inside the paintings, and explore everything around them, creating a sensory experience that takes them away to somewhere entirely different.
In addition, as they stroll through the galleries of the permanent collection, visitors will come across a number of screens, showing versions of twelve paintings replicated using 3D video, which gives an extra dimension to the idea of stepping into the painting.
HP and Samsung are the technological partners for the activities for International Museum Day and Night.
Times
The virtual reality installation will be available on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 10:00 to 19:00; on Friday from 10:00 to 22:00, and on Saturday from 10:00 until 01:00 the following morning. Admission is free, but in order to take part in the VR experience, you need to sign up at the Information Desk.
The 3D videos, in the permanent collection galleries, will be showing on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, from 10:00 to 19:00, and on Saturday from 10:00 until 01:00 (access is only free on Saturday).
The videomapping is available from 18:30 onwards, on Friday (until 22:00) and Saturday (until 01:00). Admission free.
Endesa and Culture
Both the virtual reality experience and the videomapping scheme are part of the #entrarenelcuadro initiative, which began three years ago, with Endesa's backing, so visitors could take photos of themselves within some of the paintings in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, coinciding with International Museum Day and the Long Night of Museums. The activity also ties in with #laluzdelapintura, which is another scheme run in conjunction with the energy provider, in celebration of the museum's 25th anniversary, bringing some of the masterpieces in the collection to the wider world, through screens on the façades of the Palace of Villahermosa, and 3D videos, allowing people to look at the paintings from a new perspective.
Endesa is continuously moving forward, and now has a novel offer for society, which is encapsulated in the term ‘open power’. Endesa is opening up to the world. Endesa wants to open the door to culture for all audiences. Endesa is open to innovations brought to the table by its target audiences. Endesa understands that collaboration with all the operatives that make up the company, support it and are supported by it is not something extra. It is something that is absolutely necessary. For this reason, Endesa's actions will be based on the following four ‘pillars’:
Culture. Culture – so enormously broad and so utterly necessary – must be transformed, making it open and therefore all-pervasive. Culture with no barriers, to enjoy and share the benefits of everything which improves us as citizens.
Innovation. Understood as the ability to come up with new ideas and lead the processes to implement new ways of producing, storing, distributing and using energy.
Technology Small- and large-scale development, with the necessary investment, new systems and devices which serve the needs of today’s customers, and tomorrow’s as well.
Sustainability/CSR. Endesa has a twofold commitment to the communities in which it operates: firstly as a company which produces value and opportunities, and secondly as one which is mindful of the effects of its activities on those communities, and takes steps to redress any harm or improve the lives of locals.