Klimt and Klee at the Bassins de Lumières in Bordeaux

The world's largest digital art center will open in Bordeaux on June 10, 2020 in a former submarine base. On the program: two immersive exhibitions dedicated to Gustav Klimt and Paul Klee.

Masterpieces not in a marble museum, but housed in an undersea bunker—this is the setting for the Bassins de Lumières in Bordeaux. This new XXL exhibition site offers an arts space in the old submarine base on the banks of the Garonne built during the Second World War. The Bassin aims to offer live immersive art and musical experiences in 360° projection.

To start off in style, the exhibition "Gustav Klimt, of gold and colors", specially imagined for the monumental architecture of the Basins of Lights, invites visitors directly into the selection of works that have made the artist a leader of Viennese painters.

In Klimt's golden period, his works feature portraits of women and landscapes glittering in his unique mosaic style. At the Bassins, they are transfigured by the magic of a hundred video projectors and thousands of digitized images.

Accompanied by an inspired soundtrack, from Wagner to Philip Glass, visitors can dive with Klimt and his successors, such as Egon Schiele, into Imperial Vienna at the end of the 19th century. They will discover masterpieces in massive formats—particularly the famous "The Kiss"—all in gilt and mosaics, or his splendid fresco "Beethoven." This piece is gradually revealed on the gigantic walls of the Bassins to the sound of the composer's 9th symphony.

Beethoven et Mozart sont du voyage

To evoke the period when Klimt painted nature, the immersive exhibition then leads the visitor to a forest of aligned trunks erected like the columns of a plant temple. At the edge of the wood, you can see a village.

At the end of "Gustav Klimt, of gold and color," a second, shorter projection, dedicated to Paul Klee and set to the tune of Mozart's Magic Flute, begins. Here we are the Opera, and the curtain opens—the poetry in color of the musician-painter comes to life gradually. His brushstrokes flit along the walls and play with the reflections of the four huge pools, before disappearing.

The openong at the Bassins de Lumières takes place in complete health security thanks to special measures; limitation of the number of visitors, obligatory reservations by internet, compulsory mask wearing and temperature control.

Practical
info 

Submarine base - Boulevard Alfred Daney - 33300 Bordeaux
From June 10 to December 31, 2020
Full fee: 13.5 € Reduced fee: 11 €

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Getting to the Bassins de Lumières in Bordeaux