Bathed in Colour

April saw the opening in Bordeaux of what is claimed to be the world’s largest digital art centre.

Les Bassins de Lumières are located in the city’s vast former WWII submarine base, and are the latest in a series of digital art centres and immersive exhibitions presented by Culturespaces, a leading private management and promotion organisation working in a selection of very special places. Kicking things off in Bordeaux in appropriately colourful style will be a dazzling celebration of the works of Viennese painter Gustav Klimt and his successors – the show will include portraits, landscapes and nudes, all displayed on a truly monumental scale.

Visitors will discover world-famous masterpieces such as Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’, produced during the heady mood of late-19th century Imperial Vienna. The artist and Secessionist movement he founded sought to liberate themselves from what they saw as the outmoded creative constraints of academic convention, and the works they produced paved the way to modern painting.

The monumental architecture of the submarine base looks set to provide a perfect venue for the digital exhibitions, whose images will be reflected in the mirror-like 13,000m 2 surface of water filling the four enormous spaces. Visitors will have a selection of viewpoints, both from gangways suspended above the water and along the quaysides, where digital exhibitions devoted to major figures from the history of art will alternate with shorter presentations of more contemporary works.

Also in this year’s exhibition programme is a shorter celebration of colourful abstract works by the German artist, musician and academic Paul Klee. The show promises to take visitors from an opera overture in an imaginary city to an underwater concerto, amidst gold and multicoloured fish, all to the rhythm of geometric structures. In short: an enchanting experience combining painting and music.

Les Bassins de Lumières will open daily all year round, with multiple exhibitions (presented simultaneously around all four vast spaces) to satisfy traditional and contemporary art lovers. www.bassins-lumieres.com