By NICK SMITH
The Auckland City Art Gallery is trying interactive art with a difference at its new exhibition, The Master's Eye, in a bid to appeal to school holiday crowds.
Children, parents and patrons are invited to dress up in period costume and be photographed in front of a recreated backdrop from Italian master Jacopo Amigoni's The Singer Farinelli and Friends, painted between 1750 and 1752.
Multimedia artist Tony Bishop said the sideshow to the exhibition, which covers five centuries of European painting, provided a "weird sense of inhabiting a painting."
"People wander around in costume as if they stepped out of a painting," said Bishop, who painted the backdrop and also takes instant photographs for a $5 fee.
"It adds an air of surreality to what is a pretty straight show."
On loan from Melbourne's national gallery, the exhibition includes works by Rembrandt, Turner, El Greco, Monet and Pissaro as well as modern artists such as Francis Bacon.
It runs until October 1.
Bishop said the popularity of the sideshow could be attributed to an old-fashioned enjoyment of playing dress-up.
Certainly, 9-year-old Amy Perrett and her sister Camille, 6, gave the experience two thumbs up.
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