ACCIONA Living & Culture creates virtual reality experience with Prado Museum masterpieces

• INTERNATIONAL PROJECT: ART MASTERS: A Virtual Reality Experience will take Velázquez, Veronese, Goya, Brueghel, Rubens and Hieronymus Bosch’s works to the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Chengdu.
• ‘NEXT IN’ PREMIERE: Attendees at the NEXT IN Summit, to be held in Madrid on April 23rd and 24th, will be able to enjoy the experience. In June, it will begin its tour outside of Spain.

ACCIONA Living & Culture has designed and produced the virtual reality experience titled ART MASTERS: A Virtual Reality Experience, in collaboration with the Prado National Museum, for an international audience.

This experience, in which visitors will interact with some of the most representative works of the Prado Museum’s collection through virtual reality glasses, will be displayed for the first time at the global NEXT IN Summit to be held in Madrid on April 23rd and 24th, and it will subsequently travel to China, where it will be exhibited in Shanghai and Chengdu in June and July 2025.

In an imaginary museum, visitors will be able to delve into five major masterpieces from the Prado Museum’s collection, exploring a universe between the real and the dreamlike and discovering the secrets hidden in these iconic canvases.

With a rigorous academic curatorship, the exhibition blends three-dimensional surroundings with an immersive narrative that brings the paintings and their characters to life, allowing a deeper connection with their symbolism and meaning.

During the visit, each viewer will enjoy the evocative beauty of The Sense of Sight (Jan Brueghel and Rubens, 1617) and Las Meninas (Velázquez, 1656) and will then plunge into the mythological drama of Venus and Adonis (Veronese, c. 1580). Next, they will be transported to the haunting atmosphere of El Aquelarre (Goya, 1820-23), which will take them to the Quinta del Sordo house, where the painter created his enigmatic Black Paintings. The experience will culminate in the surreal and symbolic world of The Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch, 1490-1500), a work that captures the fascination and wonder of humanity.

The exhibition’s narrative thread is the story of a museum security guard on his last day of work, a fictitious character who guides the viewer through this virtual journey. Two physical spaces frame the virtual reality experience: an introduction to the Prado Museum and a final interactive area that reinforces the connection with the exhibition.

With the academic curatorship of Alejandro Vergara, head of Conservation of Flemish Painting and Northern Schools at the Prado Museum, the exhibition uses original material from the museum, guaranteeing maximum fidelity and quality in the representation of its valuable collection.

ART MASTERS: A Virtual Reality Experience has been supported by TDG Holding Co, a leading Chinese technology firm.