'Step into the painting': Italian producers bring immersive, winter-themed exhibit to Westmoreland museum

If visitors lose themselves in the Westmoreland Museum of American Art’s latest exhibit, Italian video producers Max De Ponti and Andrea Corti will know they have done their job.

De Ponti and Corti launched a video production company, OLO Creative Farm, in Como, Italy, 20 years ago. It was their passion for cinema and storytelling that led them to creating immersive art exhibits for museums throughout the globe — including the “Winter Tales” show that opened Friday at the downtown Greensburg museum.

“We basically combined our capacity of narrating a story into our technical capacity in creating big projects,” De Ponti said.

The museum opened its winter season Friday evening, turning on its outdoor light display complemented by multiple activities for visitors as well as the new, interactive display.

Pairing 14 of the Westmoreland museum’s winter-themed pieces with animations, music and sound effects, De Ponti and Corti generated an exhibit that envelopes the viewer’s attention.

At least that’s how museum CEO and Director Silvia Filippini-Fantoni describes it.

“We get people to step into the painting because they are surrounded by it,” she said.

How it’s made

After selecting pieces from the Westmoreland’s collection, De Ponti and Corti expanded digital copies of each artwork — enough to swallow the walls when projected in the museum’s McKenna Gallery.

The pair added animations to give life to the scenes portrayed in each piece.

An image of snow-covered pine trees is enhanced with the whoosh of a wintry wind and the gentle falling of white flakes. What once was just a painting of a half-frozen creek becomes a moving picture with the sound and animation of trickling water.

“We can animate those paintings with both a sense of depth,” De Ponti said, “and also a lot of little details that can be animated and can enrich the experience.”

‘Creating a narration’ is key

But the goal is not simply to entertain, Filippini-Fantoni said. It is to bring greater attention to the finer details of each piece — the ones that the average viewer might miss.

“We know that some people are naturally so comfortable with art,” she said. “They know we have an exhibition. They come and see the exhibition no matter what…

“But there are a lot of people that don’t necessarily think that art is for them. They might be a little intimidated by it,” she said. “We do as much as we can … to create experiences that present a different connection with art, a different way of interacting with art that might be less intimidating.”

Western Pennsylvania is no stranger to immersive art. In 2021, a traveling immersive exhibit of Vincent Van Gogh’s artwork came to Pittsburgh’s North Side.

In De Ponti’s view, an immersive exhibit is nothing without the original artwork on display next to it.

“We feel that it’s very important for people to get immersed in an experience like this to have the possibility to understand more things about the paintings,” he said. “You’re going to see more details. You’re going to notice things that you wouldn’t notice if you just pass by the painting and take a look at it in a normal way.

“We believe that creating a narration is an important part, because when somebody tells you a story, it sticks to your memory,” he said. “We believe it’s an important part of our job to create a story — not only nice visual effects.”