#Interview : Bruno Monnier, President of Culturespaces – Les Bassins de Lumières

03 December 2020

The new Les Bassins de Lumieres, not to be missed ! After Les Carrières de Lumière in Provence, and l’Atelier des Lumieres in Paris, the Culture & Espace group opened its biggest site this summer, in Bordeaux!

6 months after opening, Bruno Monnier, President of Culturespaces provides us with an update and tells us about the upcoming developments of the world's largest digital art centre.

Can you introduce us to les Bassins de Lumieres ?

Created by Culturespaces, les Bassins de Lumières, located in the former Bordeaux Submarine Base, present monumental immersive digital exhibitions dedicated to the great artists of the History of Art and contemporary creation. Open since June 10, 2020, it is the largest digital art centre in the world:3 times the surface area of Les Carrières de Lumieres of Baux-de-Provence and 5 times that of L’Atelier des Lumieres in Paris.

Culturespaces' digital art centres are open spaces accessible to all, in which we offer visitors true experiences combining music and aesthetic pleasure. These venues enable visitors to undergo a collective experience and can motivate them to visit museums and discover works.

The launching of Les Bassins de Lumieres took place in a particular context, what is your assessment of this first season ?

With the health crisis, we had to postpone the opening of Les Bassins de Lumieres. The entire team worked together to allow us to open safely. We were able to open the site to visitors on June 10, 2020. We are very happy to have welcomed more than 460,000 visitors, despite the context.

Can you tell us about upcoming developments ?

Les Bassins de Lumieres will be presenting a new artistic programme as of 5 February 2021.

The long programme, under the artistic direction of Gianfranco Iannuzzi, "Monet, Renoir... Chagall, Voyages in the Mediterranean" will offer a journey of about forty minutes, from impressionism to modernity. The immersive exhibition will reveal the link between artistic creation and the Mediterranean shores, major basins of modernity. An immersion into the masterpieces of some twenty artists: Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Signac, Derain, Vlaminck, Dufy, Chagall... with more than 500 works in total!
The short program, "Yves Klein, l'infini bleu", immerses the visitor for fifteen minutes or so into the plurality of the artist's work: the famous IKB blue, Anthropometries, Cosmogonies and Planetary Reliefs.

In the Cube, a place dedicated to digital artists, we will be presenting two contemporary creations: EVERYTHING and MEMORIES. These immersive experiences question the world around us.

We will continue to develop digital art centres abroad, including the opening of an art centre in New York, scheduled for early 2022.

Further information about Les Bassins de Lumières

Contact information

Press contact :
Lola Véniel 
lola@claudinecolin.com
+ 33 (0)1 42 72 60 01  

Contact TO :
Pauline Clegnac 
groupes@bassins-lumieres.com
+ 33 (0)5.35.00.01.37