Click the Play button to watch the 360° VR experience
Experience Surrealist paintings like never before in this 360° virtual reality film. Explore the illusory perceptions of a Spanish plain in Salvador Dalí’s 1930s masterpiece, Moment de transition. Discover the enigmatic dreamscape of Paul Delvaux’s Jeunes filles au bord de l’eau. Interpret the powerfully evocative part human, part machine-like creatures in André Masson’s Hôtel d’automates. And marvel at the juxtaposition of a powerful lion and a fragile egg in René Magritte’s Le Repas de Noces. These four works along with a variety of others, including works by Joan Miró, Francis Picabia, Oscar Domínguez, and a rare unique object by Marcel Duchamp, will feature in Sotheby’s Surrealist Art Evening Sale at 8pm GMT on 1 March in London.
For an even more immersive experience, watch with headphones via the YouTube App on your mobile device, VR headset or Google Cardboard. Or visit Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries in London where the full virtual reality experience with Oculus Rift headsets will form part of the Surrealist Art exhibition, open daily until 1 March 2017.
Hannah Furness, arts correspondent
23 FEBRUARY 2017
As 2D paintings, they are striking enough.
But fans of four key surrealist works can now step inside them for the first time, as Sotheby’s launches virtual reality paintings.
The auction house has become the first to commission designers to create a 360 degree experience, translating the original paintings into a lived experience through Occulus Rift headsets.
Visitors will be able to see Dali’s horse and cart trot past them, while Magritte’s lion growls gently as is prowls around them.
The technology has been installed in Sotheby’s galleries for its forthcoming surrealist sale, and is part of its digital strategy to lure new, tech-savvy buyers to appreciate its works.
Four separate VR programmes will showcase its four key works, including Salvador Dalí’s Moment de Transition, with the painting estimated at £6.8 million.
The VR will allow potential buyers to see close-up versions of each surrealist element, including an empty horse and cart, as well as an imagined version of what would be “behind” them in a 360 degree view.
René Magritte’s Le Repas de noces will bring a lion to life, underneath the painting estimated at up to £1.2m. The two other experiences will detail André Masson’s Hotel des Automates, estimated at up to £2m, and Paul Delvaux’s Filles au bord de l’eau at up to £2.2m.
Nigel Hilditch, director of video for Sotheby’s Europe, said the VR technology would add to the depth of understanding of each painting, capturing the atmosphere as close to the artist’s original intentions as designers could manage.
The finished product had won over Sotheby’s surrealist specialists, he added, and was intended as a “complementary” offering alongside the traditional exhibition of paintings.
The auction house is understood to have waited for the surrealist sale to deploy the technology, believing the paintings were best suited to the experience, but may roll it out to other departments if successful.