LUMA Arles is an interdisciplinary creative campus where, through exhibitions, conferences, live performances, architecture and design, thinkers, artists, researchers, and scientists question the relationships between art, culture, environment, human rights, and research. The cultural center is located on the Parc des Ateliers, a former railway wasteland covering 11 hectares. The landscape garden, park, and pond surrounding the campus are the work of landscape architect Bas Smets.

Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt
Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt
Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt
Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt
Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt
Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt
Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt
Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France © Adrian Deweerdt

LUMA Arles is an interdisciplinary creative campus where, through exhibitions, conferences, live performances, architecture and design, thinkers, artists, researchers, and scientists question the relationships between art, culture, environment, human rights, and research. The cultural center is located on the Parc des Ateliers, a former railway wasteland covering 11 hectares. The landscape garden, park, and pond surrounding the campus are the work of landscape architect Bas Smets.

Programme

© Diana Thater Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
© Diana Thater Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
© Diana Thater Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
© Diana Thater Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
© Diana Thater Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
© Diana Thater Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
Diana Thater in Chernobyl. Photo by Volodymyr Palylyk, 2010
Diana Thater in Chernobyl. Photo by Volodymyr Palylyk, 2010

Practical Effects, Diana Thater

Venue: La Tour, Glassroom, Niveau -2

Approaching the idea of post-apocalyptic life through a poignant and wistful lens, Practical Effects follows a primate-like biomimetic robot who, as the last being left on Earth, has been tasked with the care and upkeep of a garden filled with intricately sculpted topiary animals. Devoid of human, animal, or mechanical contact, the colorful but weather-worn robot can only find companionship in the manicured topiary figures it cares for, putting forth a strange and tragicomic vision of how the organic and inorganic worlds might eventually collide and support one another in unexpected ways.

Erika Verzutti, Venus com Espatula, 2013 Cold porcelain clay and acrylic and potter’s rib 17 x 17 x 36 cm Photo © Eduardo Ortega
Erika Verzutti, Venus com Espatula, 2013 Cold porcelain clay and acrylic and potter’s rib 17 x 17 x 36 cm Photo © Eduardo Ortega

The Life of Sculptures, Erika Verzutti

Venue: La Tour, Galerie Est, Niveau 0

Erika Verzutti (1971) is a Brazilian sculptor who lives and works between São Paulo and Europe. Verzutti will be in residency at LUMA Arles from May through July 2024. The residency provides a platform for Verzutti to produce a significant body of new work, present an exhibition, entitled The Life of Sculptures, and develop an ongoing film project that will be shot in Arles. Verzutti’s multifarious practice as a sculptor encompasses organic, human, and animal forms, references to Modern and Modernist art, citations of Brazilian art and architecture, and a playful suggestiveness bordering on eroticism.

© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York

Lee Friedlander Framed by Joel Coen

Venue: La Tour, Galerie des Archives, Niveau -2

An exhibition born of the collaboration between the great American photographer and the celebrated film director. Spanning 60 years of Friedlander’s career through 70 prints and a film, Joel Coen’s curation highlights the photographer’s singular approach to composition and reveals an unexpected affinity between the two artists: their continual fascination with the sly power of images, explored through splintered framings, misleading compositions, and fractured and repeated elements. A veritable cinematic experience, the exhibition unfolds the images like a sequence of mini-narratives, each strange and anonymous.

Gustav Metzger, Historic Photographs: To Crawl Into – Anschluss, Vienna, March 1938, black-and-white photograph on vinyl and cotton cover, 1996-2011. Installation view, Gustav Metzger, Act or perish!, Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu , Toruń, Poland. © Wojciech Olech. Courtesy of Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń
Gustav Metzger, Historic Photographs: To Crawl Into – Anschluss, Vienna, March 1938, black-and-white photograph on vinyl and cotton cover, 1996-2011. Installation view, Gustav Metzger, Act or perish!, Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu , Toruń, Poland. © Wojciech Olech. Courtesy of Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń
Gustav Metzger, Liquid Crystals Environment, 1965-2009, 7 kodak SAV 2050 slide projectors with control units, rotating polarised filters, liquid crystals. Installation view, Gustav Metzger, Musée d’art contemporain, Lyon, France. © Blaise Adilon. Courtesy of Musée d’art contemporain, Lyon
Gustav Metzger, Liquid Crystals Environment, 1965-2009, 7 kodak SAV 2050 slide projectors with control units, rotating polarised filters, liquid crystals. Installation view, Gustav Metzger, Musée d’art contemporain, Lyon, France. © Blaise Adilon. Courtesy of Musée d’art contemporain, Lyon

Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives – Chapter 4 : Gustav Metzger – All of Us Together

Venue: La Tour, Galerie du Cerisier, Niveau -2 et Underground -3

For its fourth chapter, the Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives at LUMA Arles presents an exploration of the work of Gustav Metzger (born 10 April 1926 in Nuremberg, passed away on 1 March 2017 in London), an essential figure for ecology and activism in the arts. Drawing upon a two-decade-long friendship between Metzger and Obrist, the exhibition unfolds over two levels, providing both an immersion into never-before-seen archives and a panorama of the artist’s most iconic works, the pertinence of which is ever more urgent.

William Kentridge. More Sweetly Play The Dance, 2015. Eight channel HD film installation, four megaphones, 15 minutes. Courtesy Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation collection and the artist
William Kentridge. More Sweetly Play The Dance, 2015. Eight channel HD film installation, four megaphones, 15 minutes. Courtesy Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation collection and the artist
William Kentridge The Great Yes, The Great No © Stella Olivier
William Kentridge The Great Yes, The Great No © Stella Olivier
William KentrWilliam Kentridge. Still from You Whom I Could Not Save, 2023. Single chanel HD film 7 minutes 23 seconds. Courtesy William Kentridge Studioidge. Image extraite du film You Whom I Could Not Save, 2023. Vidéo monocanal HD 7 minutes 23 secondes. Courtesy William Kentridge Studio
William Kentridge. Still from You Whom I Could Not Save, 2023. Single chanel HD film 7 minutes 23 seconds. Courtesy William Kentridge Studio
William Kentridge. Tightrope of Our Hope, 2023. Charcoal, coloured pencil, digital print, collage and Indian ink on paper 124 cm diameter. Courtesy William Kentridge Studio
William Kentridge. Tightrope of Our Hope, 2023. Charcoal, coloured pencil, digital print, collage and Indian ink on paper 124 cm diameter. Courtesy William Kentridge Studio

I'm not waiting, William Kentridge

Venue: La Mécanique Générale, Face Nord

William Kentridge is one of the most multi-faceted artists of his generation. Combining drawing, film, sculpture, theater, and opera, he is renowned for his politically engaged practice. In conjunction with the world premiere of his newly commissioned opera The Great Yes, The Great No, which will debut at LUMA Arles this summer, the exhibition Je n’attends plus (I’m Not Waiting Any Longer) presents a group of major works, some of which have not been seen in Europe before. Dealing with issues of migration, oppression, racial relations, the transmission of history, and the role of the artist in a society under duress, the exhibition brings together a remarkable body of experimental and performative work.

Access

LUMA Arles
Parc des Ateliers
35, avenue Victor-Hugo
13200 Arles
luma-arles.org

Open from Wednesday to Monday from 10 am to 6 pm.

Locate other art venues in the vicinity on the map.

Discover our address book

PLACES TO DISCOVER

L’Aire, petit centre d’art : restaurant and art gallery (artistic director Cyrille Putman).
La Croisière : ephemeral space in the heart of Arles with restaurant, juice bar, open-air cinema, bookstore, grocery store, exhibitions, yoga classes, petanque field, music, well-being...
Musée Reattu : museum created around the artworks of the Arles painter Jacques Réattu and a collection of drawings by Picasso; the place is also devoted to photography and architecture.
Georges Selz : antique stores.
Maison Fragonard : the famous perfumer from Grasse has chosen to set up shop just a stone's throw from the famous Roman amphitheater and the ancient theater.

PLACES TO STAY

L’Arlatan : the place to be in Arles! A total work of art by Jorge Pardo. A colourful universe to sleep in, eat or enjoy a cocktail.
Le Cloître : a place designed by India Mahdavi. Located on a small place in the heart of Arles.
Le Nord-Pinus : on its terrace, at the bar or in the bedrooms, this hotspot of the Arlesian life welcomed Hemingway, Cocteau, Picasso, Inès de la Fressange or Kate Moss.
Mas de Chabran : The Domaine de Chabran and its 18th-century Mas Provençal stand in the middle of huge formal gardens, not far from the village of Maussane-les-Alpilles.

PLACES TO EAT

La Chassagnette : a tribute to the richness of the vegetables combined with local producers’ meat and fish by Chef Armand Arnal. One Michelin star.
Le Chardon : this living space welcomes Chefs in residence.
Bazar Café : coffee shop, brunch, healthy, tasty, organic and seasonal cuisine.
Infini Café : organic coffee beans, hot chocolate prepared with chocolate pieces and homemade cakes.
Le Tambourin : traditional and Provençal cuisine to enjoy on a terrace, under the majestic plane trees of the Place du Forum.
Monstre : gallery, café, restaurant, olive oil, salt, pepper.
Le Gibolin : bistrot, wine bar and organic cuisine in the uncommon district of la Roquette.
Le Galoubet : refined recipes to enjoy on a beautiful terrace, in the heart of the old town.
Mon Bar : orovençal specialties, brasserie meals and Creole recipes. A must-go terrace.
Restaurant-Hôtel Le Voltaire : a 5-minute walk from the train station, in the old centre, near the Rhône docks, at the foot of the Arenas.