Aiming to reach a young audience through a partnership with Pokémon, the Van Gogh museum attracted a crowd… of collectors, hoping in particular to get their hands on a card showing Pikachu wearing a felt hat, inspired by a self-portrait from the Dutch master.
The card game, launched in Japan in 1996 in the wake of the video game series featuring cute pocket monsters, has experienced renewed interest in recent years which has driven up prices, causing stock shortages and incidents. The “Pika-Portrait” card is given to visitors aged 6 and over “subject to availability” and on condition that they participate in a “quest” and answer questions, according to the museum which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year of existence.
Also read: The global craze for Pokémon cards, between competitive gaming and collectibles
It is also available in official Pokémon stores in the UK, US and Canada. But the company indicated Friday on its X account (formerly Twitter) that “due to massive demand, all of our products in this collection are sold out.” she is working on a solution.
If the card with the painting of the chubby Pokémon is not sold in the Amsterdam museum store, the latter was not spared by “PokéMania”: images posted on social networks showed a crowd of adult visitors competing in posters and clothing on which Pokémon paintings inspired by works by the Dutch master were printed. Described as “scalpers”, these people buy products available in limited numbers with high demand to resell them at a higher price.
“The regrettable behavior of a small number of visitors during the first day of the collaboration was not anticipated,” said a spokesperson for the museum to AFP, who assured Saturday that it had quickly guaranteed the safety of everyone. and have not had similar problems since. The museum is now limiting purchases to one of each item per person, which will soon be “available in the online store (…) while stocks last.”
The museum is offering a series of activities between September 28 and January 7, 2024 in order to attract a young audience as well as “people who would otherwise not be interested in the Van Gogh Museum.” For the institution, “the work of Vincent van Gogh and Pokémon have a particular link with Japanese art and culture”. Six paintings created by Pokémon Company artists are presented, including the Pikachu inspired by Self-Portrait with a Felt Hat (1887) found on the card.
