Vast art hub LUMA Arles opens in France
The new LUMA Arles, located in 27 acres of landscaped park, is home to works by artists including Philippe Parreno, Olafur Eliasson and Kapwani Kiwanga, and a group show of rising art stars
LUMA Arles, a vast new arts centre in southern France, has opened its doors to the public. Works from artists including Philippe Parreno, Etel Adnan, Olafur Eliasson, Koo Jeong A, Kapwani Kiwanga, Helen Marten, and Carsten Höller are situated in and around Frank Gehry’s twisting tower, which sits at the centre of the 27-acre landscaped park. The tower, clad in stainless steel panels, is home to workshop rooms and archive and research facilities, as well as making an architecturally imposing exhibition space.
Occupying two exhibition spaces in The Tower is Philippe Parreno, whose immersive artworks explore what it means to be an individual. The first tells the story of an urban space that comes to life, as Danny, and responds to the information gleaned from its environment. Visitors notice a window blind moving up and down or a change in wind direction; a pattern of mundane movements that make us want to identify Danny as something tangible.
The sounds of the building become indistinguishable from Danny, in a fusing of identity so successful that Danny’s own character becomes impossible to place. It is an ambiguity carried through into Parreno’s film No More Reality, itself an exhibition space that fuses ten of the artist’s films together into a single narrative.
The narrative is subjective, but the subject flits through different identities, to a background of sound that is in jarring discord to the moving images, creating an uncomfortable friction.
A sense of disorientation is also examined by Olafur Eliasson, whose Take your time builds on a fascination with natural phenomena previously explored through natural materials such as light, ice and water. The artwork, situated in the second level of The Tower, plays with reflections through a large circular mirror attached to the ceiling above a double-helix staircase. Rotating on its axis, its skewed distortion of the architecture of the tower creates an uneasy sense of the infallibility of space for the viewer.
For Carsten Höller, The Tower’s height becomes an opportunity to continue his work into the architectural possibilities inherent in slides. Seduced both by the efficiency with which they transport you to your destination and the temporary state of madness they incur on our consciousness, his work is a persuasive argument to see them embraced with the ubiquity of elevators and escalators. In the garden, the journey is further examined in a passage of mirrored sliding doors that seem to stretch to infinity, a chain only broken with the advance of a visitor whose actions force a limit to the space.
Koo Jeong A is another artist attracted to the architectural possibilities in children’s play. Her skatepark on the public terrace, drawn in fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark paint, plays on light conditions and also notes the close relationship between performance and contemporary culture.
Emerging artists join established ones in ‘Prelude’, which unites the works of Sophia Al-Maria, Kapwani Kiwanga, P. Staff and Jakob Kudsk Steensen in an exploration of how the destruction of nature is shaping our society. Works encompassing virtual reality, sculpture, sound and video consider political colonisation and the colonisation of ecosystems. Kiwanga’s Flowers for Africa situates history as a living entity with the ability to incite change, while Al-Maria explores collective history in Tender Point Ruin, which takes a beautiful corpse as its focus in a study of life’s dynamic rhythms. P. Staff looks at the consequences of two bodies touching in Conjunctions, exploring the shift of energies, while Kudsk Steensen transports the viewer to Camargue in Liminal Lands – a timely reminder of the mysteries of the world we live in.
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Hannah Silver is the Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*. Since joining in 2019, she has overseen offbeat design trends and in-depth profiles, and written extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury. She enjoys meeting artists and designers, viewing exhibitions and conducting interviews on her frequent travels.
-
First look: Western Mongolia meets Kew Gardens in John Pawson and Oyuna Tserendorj’s cashmere throws
Architectural designer John Pawson and cashmere designer Oyuna Tserendor have collaborated on a cashmere throw collection inspired by Pawson’s 70m Lake Crossing in the Royal Botanical Gardens
By Scarlett Conlon Published
-
How to buy art: the accessible new market
Thanks to a growing pool of art advisers, digital intelligence and collector groups, buyers are better equipped than ever
By Annabel Keenan Published
-
The coolest design-led coffee shops in Seoul
Seoul counts more coffee shops per capita than any other city in the world – cut straight to our six must-visit spots
By Robert Schneider Published
-
‘Who has not dreamed of seeing what the eye cannot grasp?’: Rencontres d’Arles comes to the south of France
Les Rencontres d’Arles 2024 presents over 40 exhibitions and nearly 200 artists, and includes the latest iteration of the BMW Art Makers programme
By Sophie Gladstone Published
-
Van Gogh Foundation celebrates ten years with a shape-shifting drone display and The Starry Night
The Van Gogh Foundation presents ‘Van Gogh and the Stars’, anchored by La Nuit Etoilée, which explores representations of the night sky, and the 19th-century fascination with the cosmos
By Amy Serafin Published
-
Marisa Merz’s unseen works at LaM, Lille, have a uniquely feminine spirit
Marisa Merz’s retrospective at LaM, Lille, is a rare showcase of her work, pursuing life’s most fragile, transient details
By Finn Blythe Published
-
Step into Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron's dreamy photographs in London
'Portraits to Dream In' is currently on show at London's National Portrait Gallery
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Damien Hirst takes over Château La Coste
Damien Hirst’s ‘The Light That Shines’ at Château La Coste includes new and existing work, and takes over the entire 500-acre estate in Provence
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Tia-Thuy Nguyen encases Chateau La Coste oak tree in tonne of stainless steel strips
Tia-Thuy Nguyen’s ‘Flower of Life’ lives in the grounds of sculpture park and organic winery Château La Coste in France
By Harriet Quick Published
-
Paris art exhibitions: a guide to exhibitions this weekend
As Emily in Paris fever puts the city of love at the centre of the cultural map, stay-up-to-date with our guide to the best Paris art exhibitions
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Cyprien Gaillard on chaos, reorder and excavating a Paris in flux
We interviewed French artist Cyprien Gaillard ahead of his major two-part show, ‘Humpty \ Dumpty’ at Palais de Tokyo and Lafayette Anticipations (until 8 January 2023). Through abandoned clocks, love locks and asbestos, he dissects the human obsession with structural restoration
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published