Vangoghing, but not Vangoghn

Arles suffers from a Van Gogh problem. It has no Van Goghs. Ten years ago, making a pious odyssey after Vincent, I was depressed by what I found of the Dutch genius in the local museums—a reproduction, discolored and curling away from its shirt laundry cardboard backing, clipped from a vintage Life magazine. What a way to salute a local totem.
And given the current state of his art market, what could an economically depressed small town do to celebrate the centennial of the artist’s coming to Arles to create a Utopian colony for painters, where the living was cheap and the light was the best in Europe?

The short answer is “lots.” Two canny initiatives have deftly done an end-run around the escalating cost of Van Gogh originals.

Since 1984, under the energetic inspiration of Yolande Clergue, a foundation called Vincent Van Gogh-Arles has been shrewdly maneuvering to fulfill Vincent’s century-old dream of a maison des artistes he conceived when he spent those crucial two years under the sun of Provence, 1888-89.

Their first bold step is on view at the old headquarters of the Knights of Malta, under the rubric “Birth of a Collection, 1985-1988,” a gathering of homages to Vincent by a global roster of artists. Not many of the homages are masterpieces, but a few come mighty close, and none is a discredit to the memory of the hapless painter.

My favorite is Karel Appel’s “Portrait de Van Gogh,” a huge, freestanding wood sculpture of Vincent’s head with the image rendered in Polaroid and acrylic, the face obscured by hanging hawsers. When I ran into Appel a week later at FIAC in Paris, I asked him what was with the ropes.

“I’m a man of the sea, an Amsterdam man, and hawsers appeal to me,” he replied. “But it also means reparation, healing, binding together the wounds of the modern world which Vincent suffered.”

But other homages pleased my eye as well: Francis Bacon (whose ectoplasmic image is the poster logo), Fernando Botero, Arman, Vincent Bioules, David Hockney and Peter Klassen.

In any case, it’s not a competition but a collaborative celebration. And Mme. Clergue is nothing if not populist—one virtue spotlights the original manuscript of Don McLean’s song, “Starry, Starry Night.”

Meanwhile, across town, in that museum that virtually disgraced the memory of its hero with such faint praise a mere ten years ago—what a difference a decade makes. The city fathers are hard at work recycling the old hospital on the Rue Gambetta as “L’Espace Culturel Van-Gogh.”

Even in its half-complete condition, it is very beguiling. And though the Mediatheque and the library and archives won’t be ready until spring, the exhibition hall has opened with an absorbing glimpse of what Arles looked like when Vincent arrived.

I have never seen Beaux Artsy street-straightening plans and garden improvement schemes used so creatively to produce a lively sense of place. And there are old photographs, trade posters (for that hot innovation, the department store) and diverse memorabilia which really do convey what is must have been like when the artist sought his ideal venue there.

Beginning in January, the Arlesiana ceded—to a borrowed show of the real Van Gogh—paintings assembled from all over the world to honor the centennial of his residence there.

With all this creativity in exploiting a neglected regional resource, can the Office de Tourisme D’Arles-Camargue be far beyond? No way. The first shot in their campaign they hope will be heard round the world is a most useful map of all the holy places in the city, with directions on how to walk it alone, in silence, or in groups with paid commentary.

If tourists from all over refuse to be seduced by these sweet overtures, they deserve to be bored wherever else they stay. As I walked into town from the train station (a morning bus will take you to Saint Remy), I ran into a Midwesterner in front of the Hotel Van Gogh packing his rented car after an overnight in Arles.

“How was it?” I schmoozed. “Terrific. This is our second stop here.” So even the no-star hotels are inviting, including a visit to the local winery which has a you-know-who label. Of course, you can stay at the Julius Caesar, a four-star closer to the town center.

Meanwhile, up north in Amsterdam, I checked into the Van Gogh Museum to get oriented to his whole life and oeuvre. It was my dumb Irish luck to arrived the same day as a one-man show, Vincent, which explores the Dutch painter’s short and mostly unhappy life in Arles from the viewpoint of Gauguin.

Watch for it at your local cultural center. It’s cathartic. And the Dutch actor has already wowed the U.S. circuits with his version of Vermeer. So don’t fret the high cost of market art. Find an angle, and illuminate.

Reprinted from Welcomat: After Dark, Hazard-at-Large, February 22, 1989