Frank Gehry’s latest creation to house major new works by Carsten Höller, Ólafur Elíasson and more

Luma Arles has unveiled a major new exhibition programme and series of artist commissions, housed amongst a 27-acre creative campus with a 15,000-square-metre tower designed by Frank Gehry. Located in at the Parc des Ateliers in the city of Arles, the opening programme has compiled works from 45 artists and designers, along with commissions for Luma by international artists such as Carsten Höller, Ólafur Elíasson, Kapwani Kiwanga and Helen Marten among others.

Gehry’s geometric structure – comprising 11,000 stainless steel panels – is home to various exhibition galleries, project spaces, a cafe, Luma's research and archive facilities, plus workshops and seminar rooms. The Tower will also feature several artist commissions throughout its mammoth 12 floors, such as Philippe Parreno who has created Danny, a permanent artwork using algorithmic technology, Etel Adnan’s ceramic wall mural, a site-specific iteration of Ólafur Elíasson’s Take your Time – a round, rotating mirror on the ceiling – Carsten Höller’s transporting artwork Isometric Slides, and Christian Marclay’s 24-hour video The Clock, shown throughout the summer and exploring the perception of time.

Describing his building, Frank Gehry says in the release: “We wanted to evoke the local, from Van Gogh’s Starry Night to the soaring rock clusters you find in the region. Its central drum echoes the plan of the Roman amphitheatre.” 

Elsewhere in The Tower is The Impermanent Display, an exhibition of artworks from the Luma Foundation and Maja Hoffman collection. Artist’s involved are Rirkrit Tiravanija, Arthur Jafa, Urs Fischer, Paul McCarthy, Precious Okoyomon and more. Three Generations: Works from the Emanuel Hoffman Foundation Collection will also be on show, presenting artworks from the collections of European and Western avant-garde artists such as Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, Duane Michals, Cy Twombly and Rosemarie Trockel.

Taking things outside and into the surrounding gardens, visitors are able to walk through the site’s green space and public park designed by landscape architect Bas Smets. Additionally, there’s a host of outdoor artworks on show, which includes a 13-metre-high pink sculpture by Franz West, a glow in the dark skatepark by Koo Jeong A, Carsten Höller’s Seven Sliding Doors Corridor – which sees mirrors placed into a seemingly endless passageway – plus Kerstin Brätsch’s mosaic floor for the Café du Parc.

It doesn’t stop there either; a number of exhibitions will launch across the Luma Arles campus, too. La Grand Halle, Pierre Huyghe will present After UUmwelt, a piece that develops over the time of the exhibition – following on from the artist’s project at the Serpentine Gallery in London. Prelude at La Mécanique Générale will see work from four emerging contemporary artists come together in an immersive exhibition of film, video, virtual reality, sculpture and sound. These artists include Sophia Al Maria, Kapwani Kiwanga, P.Staff and Jakob Kudsk Steensen.

Luma Foundation was established by Maja Hoffmann in 2004 as the leading international philanthropic organisation, devised with a focus on art, culture, environmental issues, human rights, education and research. Since launching, the organisation has provided many opportunities for artists to experiment, collaborate and showcase their work; Luma has commissioned and presented work from more than 100 artists and innovators at the sites in Arles so far.

Maja Hoffmann, founder and president of the Luma Foundation, says in the release: “Luma is the fruit of a number of years of experimentation and of a lifelong commitment to artists and a healthy environment, it’s a total immersion in a world, both inside the premises and outside, in which the visitors can engage, as their fancy takes them. The different areas of the Parc des Ateliers, thanks to their size and types, will enable us to produce an interdisciplinary programme, adapted to a fluctuating environment that offers new opportunities for artists and thinkers, freeing them up from the constraints inherent to the practices and structures of classical institutions.”