Culturespaces, France’s leading private manager of museums and cultural heritage sites, and IMG, a global leader in events, media and fashion have partnered on Culturespaces’ first North American property, Hall des Lumières, a permanent center for custom-designed immersive digital art experiences, which opens in New York City September 14, 2022. Culturespaces is the creator and producer behind numerous digital art centers around the globe which marries its exhibitions to historic places that it redesigns and reimagines as permanent destinations, including the famed Atelier des Lumières in Paris, which welcomes 1.4 million visitors a year.
Hall des Lumières will be located at 49 Chambers Street, inside the elaborate former teller hall and vault level of the historic, landmarked Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank opposite Manhattan’s City Hall Park. The former bank has been redesigned and reimagined to become New York’s newest cultural destination. The immersive digital arts center presents new, innovative ways for audiences to interact with and experience artists and their work, and will showcase entirely new, custom-curated exhibitions every ten to twelve months based on the work of different world-renowned artists, starting with the debut exhibition, Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion.
The inaugural installation will feature luminescent, 30-foot-high images of celebrated works by the legendary painter, moving across the spectacular architecture and mapped precisely to the exact specifications of the building, along with other sensory elements including a musical soundtrack arranged especially for this presentation. The experience is designed to bring guests through Klimt’s prolific career while perfectly complementing the marble walls, towering columns, stained glass skylights and coved ceilings of the grand space. The artistic team for the exhibition is led by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, whose previous projects include his original immersive experience of the work of Vincent van Gogh at Atelier des Lumières.
Shorter, complementary digital experiences will accompany Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion. These will include an exhibition featuring works by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian artist inspired by Klimt; a contemporary creation by the interdisciplinary studio Nohlab, titled 5 Movements, which will guide visitors to explore space and time through a performer’s five different types of body movements; and a contemporary creation, Recording Entropia, exploring the vast possibilities of the human mind.
Guests will also be able to watch a presentation about the history and design of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, one of the first skyscrapers built in the Beaux-Arts style, as well as view panels displaying images of Klimt’s paintings shown at actual scale, with information about the museums across the globe where these works can be seen.
Opening
Hall des Lumières will open on September 14, 2022. Ticket prices will start at $30 for adults and $15 for youth ages 5-16 (children under the age of 5 are free). Special prices are also available for seniors (65+) and members of the military.
For more information and to purchase tickets to experience the Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion installation beginning September 14, visit www.halldeslumieres.com. Tickets are on sale through the end of the year, with 2023 dates coming soon.
Follow @halldeslumieres on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
By Chadd Scott
What do you think?