Centre d’Art Contemporain de Châteauvert
At the crossroads of the Provence Verte, arts and nature combine… The contemporary arts centre of Châteauvert invites us to stroll and daydream among its temporary exhibitions and the sculptures populating its garden. To the rhythm of the Argens, a river sometimes peaceful, sometimes whimsical, the arts centre thrills contemporary creation in a spirit of discovery and sharing. The projects are sprouting up with the residencies of artists who create on-site works, in harmony with the garden environment.
The contemporary art centrer of Châteauvert is a public cultural estblishment of agglomération Provence Verte.
At the crossroads of the Provence Verte, arts and nature combine… The contemporary arts centre of Châteauvert invites us to stroll and daydream among its temporary exhibitions and the sculptures populating its garden. To the rhythm of the Argens, a river sometimes peaceful, sometimes whimsical, the arts centre thrills contemporary creation in a spirit of discovery and sharing. The projects are sprouting up with the residencies of artists who create on-site works, in harmony with the garden environment.
The contemporary art centrer of Châteauvert is a public cultural estblishment of agglomération Provence Verte.
Programme
Hilario Isola - That Which Looks at Us
Italian artist Hilario Isola, who lives and works between Turin and Bagnolo, presents a group of works brought together for the first time as a gallery of singular presences. Drawn from existing series (I Mani, I Filosofi, The Scientists, Aruspice) and enriched by new pieces created in resonance with the agricultural and natural context of Provence Verte, they reveal a central thread in his practice: the face as a threshold, a sensitive interface between what we see and what, in turn, looks back at us.
Unfolding in a subtle chiaroscuro, the works remain at the edge of the visible. They seek neither spectacle nor immediate recognition, but rather call for attention, establishing a true reversibility of the gaze, echoing the thought of Georges Didi-Huberman. More than a sequence of portraits, the exhibition proposes a shifted experience of looking, where matter, memory, and landscape enter into dialogue. Rooted in duration and in the slow transformation of materials, Isola develops an art of quiet presence, in which seeing also means accepting to be seen.
Agnès de la Roncière – Moments and Traces
The Contemporary Art Centre of Châteauvert renews its commitment: to circulate art where it is created in the present moment, as close as possible to children and to everyday places of life. This summer, artist Agnès de la Roncière led a residency at the Correns Leisure Centre, working with groups of children under the age of ten, brought together around a shared collective theme.
Today, the mezzanine hosts the presentation of this project, conceived as the “Genesis of an Imaginary Garden,” where frescoes and assemblages intersect: a garden growing in layers, composed portraits, painted objects “to be invented.” Here, the workshop becomes a shared landscape — a memory of gestures, colours, observations… and joyful freedoms.
Agnès de la Roncière works as one might build a serious playground: with simple rules, accessible tools, and room left for the unexpected. In Correns, she brought together observation of living forms (plants, the garden), the history of painting (from the 16th century to Claire Tabouret), and collective making: floor and wall frescoes, cut-and-assembled portraits, still lifes of objects… A museum, yes — but one that smells of chalk and oil pastels.
Elias Kurdy’s Cerberuses in the Garden
Open and free to the public all year round, the sculpture garden of the Châteauvert Contemporary Art Centre is hosting three of Elias Kurdy’s Cerberuses for one year.
These works revisit and transform the mythological figure of the guardian of the Underworld. In place of Cerberus’s three howling heads, three fully blossomed bouquets emerge. The monster, stripped down to a motionless whiteness, seems to have lost its original function: no more fangs, no blazing gaze — only blooms that disarm its former fury. Once responsible for keeping wandering souls at the threshold of the realm of the dead, Cerberus becomes here a paradoxical creature: its floral heads no longer threaten, they watch.
Born in Damascus in 1990 and now based in Marseille, Elias Kurdy first studied architecture before training at the School of Fine Arts. His practice, nourished by history and fiction, plays with illusion and imbalance. Blending sculpture, drawing and traditional materials, he revisits classical heritage to question what we choose to pass on — and what may be lost.
Access
Centre d'art contemporain de Châteauvert
460, chemin de la Réparade
83670 Châteauvert
+33 (0)7 81 02 04 66
centredartchateauvert.fr
Outside school holidays:
Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday
• From October 1 to April 30: 2 pm – 5 pm
• From May 2 to September 30: 2 pm – 6 pm
School holidays:
Wednesday to Sunday
• From October 1 to April 30: 2 pm – 5 pm
• From May 2 to September 30: 2 pm – 6 pm
July / August:
• Wednesday to Friday: 2 pm – 6 pm
• Saturday and Sunday: 10 am – 1 pm / 2 pm – 6 pm
Locate other art venues in the vicinity on the map.
Discover our address book
PLACES TO DISCOVER
• The Marie-Madeleine Cave (Plan-d'Aups-Sainte-Baume)
• Basilique de Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Baume : hosting the relics of Marie-Madeleine, turning this building into the third tomb of Christianity.
• Musée des Comtes de Provence : a significant collection of ex-voto (Brignoles)
• Correns : organic village 5km away from Châteauvert
• Cotignac : village of character with a troglodyte cliff at 15km from Châteauvert.
• Carcès : small medieval village 15km from Châteauvert.
• Le Vallon Sourn : a protected area where the famous Fairy’s Cave is located. (Correns)
• Château Margüi : a vineyard fed by three natural sources making the filmmaker Georges Lucas’ clay-limestone soils especially fertile. (Châteauvert)
PLACES TO EAT
• Pop-up restaurant of the art center : a summer and friendly cuisine, served in the community hall during summer. (Châteauvert)
• La Cigale Provençale : some forty different pizzas from around the world at the end of the Vallon Sourn. (Correns)
• Le Clos des Vignes : a diverse and refined menu in a former sheepfold, in a peaceful setting open to the outside. (Cotignac)
PLACES TO STAY
• Gites de la Réparade : the former wine and forest estate - where ochre and terra cotta combine - offers quietness and sweetness of life. (Châteauvert)
• Auberge de Correns : hotel and restaurant. (Correns)
• Lou Calen : this eco resort brings together a hotel, restaurants, bars, an art center, a bookstore and creative workshops in a preserved corner of Provence (Cotignac).
