Judy Chicago:
An Homage to Arles
An Immersive Smoke Sculpture™
Parc des Ateliers
On
LUMA Arles and Judy Chicago
cordially invite you to experience
An Homage to Arles
An Immersive Smoke Sculpture ™ by Judy Chicago
Commissioned by LUMA on the occasion of Judy Chicago’s first retrospective exhibition in Europe Herstory
organized in collaboration with the New Museum, New York
An Homage to Arles is Chicago’s first large-scale immersive smoke sculpture created in Europe.
Practical information :
Date : Monday, July 1st
Gate opening: From 8:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m
Beginning of performance: 8:45 p.m.*
Duration: 15 min
Place: Landscaped park, 45 chemin des Minimes, 13200 Arles
Price: Free, booking required, subject to availability
All tickets for the event have been reserved. Additional tickets will be available at the entrance of Parc des Ateliers on the evening of the event, subject to availability.
This performance includes the use of non-toxic and environmentally friendly colored smoke. The public may be exposed to smoke, which may not be suitable for sensitive people with respiratory problems. Please take precautions if necessary.
* Times may slightly change according to weather conditions
Judy Chicago first turned to pyrotechnics in the late 1960s in an attempt to feminize the atmosphere at a time when the southern California art scene was almost entirely male dominated. Between 1968 and 1974, Judy Chicago executed a series of increasingly complex fireworks pieces that involved site specific performances around California.
Some of these works, titled Atmospheres, were intended to transform and soften the landscape, introducing a feminine impulse into the environment, while others focused on recreating early women-centered activities like the kindling of fire or the worship of goddess figures. Her final Atmosphere of that period took place in 1974 near the Oakland Museum, which commissioned the work.
Commissioned by Luma Arles and conceived specifically for the Parc des Ateliers, it is part of the artist’s first retrospective exhibition in Europe Herstory.
In the creation of the piece, Chicago has taken into consideration the history of the impressionist movement in art, which was particularly important in France in the nineteenth century. Like other notable art movements of the past, it is mostly recognized via the output of male artists and has sidelined female artists that were part of it.
With the immersive smoke sculpture An Homage to Arles, Chicago aims to complexify this history.
"An Homage to Arles" by Judy Chicago in collaboration with Pyro Spectaculars by Souza and Groupe F.
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist, and educator whose career spans nearly six decades. Her work has been the subject of major retrospectives at Serpentine Galleries, London (2024), the New Museum, New York (2023), and the De Young Museum, San Francisco (2021), and is in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago; The Brooklyn Museum; The British Museum; the De Young Museum; The Getty Trust; The Hammer Museum; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Moderna Museet; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Tate; and more than twenty-five university art museums. She is the author of sixteen books, including The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago and Revelations published by Thames & Hudson. The retrospective exhibition Judy Chicago: Herstory at LUMA Arles in Summer 2024 will be her first retrospective in Europe. The exhibition is conceived in partnership with the New Museum, New York.