Atlantic City Hard Rock casino holds Van Gogh exhibition to attract new customers

Visitors viewing Van Gogh’s The Starry Night in New York’s Museum of Modern Art – CC BY-SA

Casinos are starting to expand their services reach to people who are not interested in gambling. Fine art galleries and exhibitions are opening in casinos to attract new customers to their venues. One exhibition is already held last Friday in Hard Rock casino of Atlantic City.

“You need to try different experiential things to help the city acquire new visitation, whether it’s art or some other experience to acquire that person who doesn’t look at Atlantic City as just a gaming destination,” said the president of Atlantic City Hard Rock casino Joe Lupo.

The “Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” is an unusual exhibition as it incorporates technology to display Vincent Van Gogh’s works. Hard Rock digitally reproduced 300 of his art and projected them on surfaces such as screens, walls, and floors.

“The Van Gogh exhibit has been successful in every major market in the country, and Atlantic City needs to be looked at as one of those major markets. I think it elevates the city and the property with such a high-profile exhibit,” Lupo said.

Visitors can browse the works in a 30,000-square-foot viewing area of the walkthrough exhibition. The arts can move and “disrupt” one another, giving a new art-viewing experience for patrons.

“The whole point of an experience like this is to bring people in,” said the art historian of the exhibit Fanny Curtat. “For a lot of people, museums are intimidating. It’s all about exploring and having more ways of experiencing art.”

The art historian also said the exhibition will not only benefit the casinos by drawing more customers, but also art itself. More and more people will be willing to learn about art after going to the exhibition.

“It might seem like an unlikely pairing, but if anybody gets out of this a feeling that they have this connection with Van Gogh, maybe the next time they are in New York they’ll want to go to (The Museum of Modern Art) and see the actual ‘Starry Night’ on the museum wall,” Curtat said. “That will be a win.”