Prado Masterpieces Get VR Experience In Brooklyn Debut

(MENAFN- USA Art News) The Museo Nacional del Prado's collection is arriving in New York this autumn with“Masterpieces: A Virtual Experience of the Museo del Prado,” marking the exhibition's United States debut at Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn. The immersive virtual reality (VR) presentation, which reimagines five of the museum's most celebrated paintings, opens on October 1 and runs through December 20, 2026.

Developed by Acciona Cultura in collaboration with Madrid's Museo Nacional del Prado, the roughly 30-minute VR experience is uniquely framed through the eyes of a fictional security guard on his final shift before retirement. This narrative choice shifts the focus from academic interpretation to a deeply personal connection with the art.

Visitors can explore five iconic Prado paintings within the VR environment:

Rubens and Brueghel's The Sense of Sight (1617) Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas (1656) Paolo Veronese's Venus and Adonis (ca. 1580) Francisco de Goya's Witches' Sabbath (1820–1823) Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights (Triptych) (1490–1500)

Each painting transforms from a flat canvas into a three-dimensional, theatrical setting, complete with an original score and narrative designed to draw viewers into the artwork's illustrative world. Many of these works rarely, or never, leave the Prado due to conservation restrictions, making the VR format one of the few ways to experience them intimately outside of Spain.

Alejandro Vergara, the Prado's senior curator of Flemish and Northern European paintings, explained the selection process.“We have chosen five works from the museum for this project, and we did so partly because they are all widely recognized and have been admired for centuries, each teaching us something different,” Vergara stated.“Las Meninas, a Spanish court painting, in this case, a piece from Rubens and Brueghel, The Sense of Sight, an allegory of the importance painting held for the nobility of the time, Bosch's work, already highly popular during his lifetime, continues to captivate today, Veronese's Venus and Adonis, a deeply passionate painting that conveys the poetic pain that art can express, and with Goya, we encounter painting at its most intense, [presenting] dreams, fears and the shadows of the human condition.”

The exhibition has previously been shown in Madrid, Buenos Aires, and Hong Kong. Its run in Shanghai attracted over 40,000 visitors, leading organizers to extend that showing by a year. The Brooklyn presentation at Powerhouse Arts, located in the Gowanus neighborhood, will be accompanied by public programming, including an opening dance party with DJ April Hunt on Saturday, October 3, a staff art show, and public conversations exploring art, technology, and museum access. These additional events aim to foster deeper engagement with visual art and encourage new perspectives among attendees.

Source: Artnet News

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