The Studio of Light

Art as Experience at l’Atelier des Lumières in Paris

A Visitor’s View of “Hundertwasser, in the Wake of the Vienna Secession” (2018) at the l’Atelier des Lumières by Culturespaces. Image courtesy of the Author.

A common desire directed toward painting is the wish for the ability to connect directly with the material through an imaginative window of nostalgia. Although this is the memory of a time that has never existed, historic paintings typically bring these moments to life, as seen in the 2017 movie titled Loving Vincent. Throughout this film one is taken into the world that was both seen and experienced by Vincent Van Gogh. Likenesses rapidly changed into tangible painted brushstrokes, bearing realistic hues of color.

A Visitor’s View of “Hundertwasser, in the Wake of the Vienna Secession” (2018) at the l’Atelier des Lumières by Culturespaces. Image courtesy of the Author.

In 2018 this new way of experiencing painting expanded further with the opening of l’Atelier des Lumières, located in a vast warehouse along the Rue Saint-Maur within the 11th Arrondissement of Paris. The inaugural exhibition featured two digital presentations of paintings by Hundertwasser and Gustav Klimt. As shown in the images that appear both above and below this paragraph, viewers were submerged within animated surfaces that magnified details seen throughout each painting’s content.