While the vacation begin this Friday, December 20, we have developed a selection of 7 unmissable exhibitions to enjoy at Salon-de-Provence and a few kilometers away.
Salon-de-Provence: Collection 44, hidden objects of war
Until February 24, 2025, come and discover a unique exhibition devoted to objects from the Second World War, “Collection 44 – Hidden treasures” at the Château de l’Empéri de Salon-de-Provence.
This exhibition brings together precious pieces, donated by a dozen donors from the Salonais regionall driven by the duty to transmit historical memory.
Among these treasures, you will be able to see clothes, compasses, flags, daggers and other everyday objects that belonged to both French civilians than German soldiers. Each object, steeped in history, reveals an intimate and often surprising part of lives transformed by conflict.
• At the Château de l’Empéri, Salon-de-Provence, free entry until February 24. 04 90 44 72 80.
Les Baux-de-Provence: Careers of the Enlightenment, the Egypt of the Pharaohs
Until January 12, 2025, still enjoy the event exhibition “The Egypt of the Pharaohs, from Khufu to Ramesses II” at the Carrières des Lumières in Baux-de-Provence.
Go back in time and rediscover the Egypt of the pharaohs through the masterpieces of this mythical civilization which spans three millennia and fascinates all generations.
As a prologue to the exhibition, grains of sand lifted by the wind reveal the remains of ancient Egypt as they appeared to French scientists during the Egyptian campaign of 1798 to 1801, and drawn by the painter David Roberts, who wrote in his notebook: “We are a people of dwarves visiting a nation of giants.”
The pyramids take shape
The journey then continues on the sacred river Nilesource of life. The rhythm of floods and seasons provides the fertile silt necessary for lush flora and fauna to flourish. Daily life in Egypt ancient is illustrated by magnificent bas-reliefs, paintings and ancient papyri.
Gigantic construction sites and feats of ancient architecture, the pyramids take shape before the eyes of visitors: one by one, the colossal blocks pile up to form the tombs of the eternal kings, guarded by the majestic Sphinx.
Pyramids, pharaohs, divinities, Nile, sculptures, temples, tombs…all the riches of Egypt will immerse you in a civilization of exceptional density.
This exhibition is accompanied by a short format on “The Orientalists. Ingres, Delacroix, Gérôme…”
• The Carrières des Lumières, Route de Maillane, Les Baux-de-Provence. Until January 12, 2025. November, December and January, every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Prices from €12 to €15.50.
Istres: Polaris, rituals and new technologies
Until February 2, 2025, the Polaris Art center in Istres proposes theexhibition “Shore of the ancestors” by Tabita Rezaire. The latter presents a set of works at the crossroads of new technologies and ancestral rituals.
At the same time artist, farmer, yoga teacher, doula (person accompanying pregnant women), Tabita Rezaire offers to act as intercessor between us and other ways of access to the world. Through his video installationsshe reinvents the contemporary technologies in the light of ancestral sciences to rethink our relationship with the cosmos, by reinvesting bodily memory, both centuries-old and digital.
• Polaris, art center, Forum des Carmes – Place Patricia Tranchand, Istres. Open during exhibitions Tuesday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., closed Monday. Free entry.
Aix-en-Provence: Granet Museum, the vibration of Etienne Rey
On the occasion of the Aix-en-Provence Biennale, as part of “Chroniques, Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques”, the Arts Vivants association is offering, until January 19, 2025, Granet museum in Aix-en-Provence the exhibition “The Vibration of Appearances” dedicated to the contemporary artist Étienne Reywho lives and works in Marseille.
Conceived as an installation, sensitive to the slightest movement of spectators, the exhibition reveals unique patterns, inspired by interference phenomena, transforming wave principles into tangible visual manifestations.
These interactions between the visitor and the works highlight nuances of color, reflections and transparencies, sculpting impressions of hollows, reliefs and depth, at the crossroads between materiality and immateriality.
• Granet Museum, Place Saint Jean de Malte, Aix-en-Provence. Tuesday to Sunday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Until January 19. Access included in the museum entrance fee. Annual closures on December 25 and January 1. Museum with free entry on the 1st Sunday of the month. Prices from €5.50 to €6.50
Avignon: To life, to love at the Palais des Papes
Until January 25, 2025, the Palais des Papes in Avignon offersexhibition “Miss.Tic, to life, to love”. Poet of the city and artist in the city, Miss.Tic is a pioneer of urban art and the French stencil movement. Active since the beginning of the 1980s, it has never stopped, for forty years, hammering home the same ideas “no ideals / just high ideas”she writes.
It’s a real literary projectplastic, societal and philosophical that she writes on the walls with aerosol ink. She expresses her rage, her desires, her humor, her thirst for justice through a protean practice, within which the street will remain until the end the privileged place ofa mode of expression, exhibition and popular education.
• Palais des Papes, Place du Palais des Papes, Avignon. Until December 31: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. School holidays December 21, 2024 to January 6, 2025: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. From January 1 to February 29: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Last access to the Palace one hour before. Prices (Palace, gardens and exhibition) from €8 to €14.50.
Marseille: Mucem, migrations in the Mediterranean
Until March 16, 2025, the Mucem of Marseille offers the exhibition “Revenir”. Algeria, Armenia Greece, Palestine, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Syria… What types of links do we keep with the land of origin after leaving it? Is return “the desire and dream of all immigrants”, as sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad wrote?
There are those who are lucky enough to be able to return every year, for a summer, or even to settle back permanently at home after a life of exile. But what to do when borderspolitics or war make return impossible? How to return, when home no longer exists? This exhibition focuses on the question of migrations in the Mediterranean from the little-known angle of “return”.
Objects, works of art to illustrate the complexity of experiences
Through objects, works of art and life journeys, she wishes to approach the complexity of the experiences of “return”, caught between uprooting and rootedness, practices and imagination, national governance and individual aspirations.
It is about question these plural realitiescirculatory, non-linear, sometimes prevented, sometimes diverted, which involve home, its recognition and its transposition, without omitting the memories and dreams which are intimately linked to it.
Intermingled are works kept in public collections, intimate objects and family documents, as well as creations of contemporary artists whose practice echoes their personal experience of exile and return.
• Mucem, Fort Saint-Jean Bât Georges Henri Rivière (GHR), Marseille. Until March 16, 2025. Open every day, except Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Prices from 11 to 18 €
Aix-en-Provence: Steve McCurry at the Caumont art center
Until March 23, 2025, Caumont Art Center in Aix-en-Provence proposes the exhibition “Steve McCurry, regards”. The Steve McCurry exhibition, presented this winter at Caumont-Centre d’art, brings together the 80 most emblematic works of the famous photographer contemporary American, as well as recent photos never before exhibited in France.
Born in 1950, this creator of iconic and poignant images has set his sights throughout the world, always centered on humans, thus delivering a striking testimony of our times.
This exhibition covers nearly 40 years of career of the photographer and illustrates his numerous travels, from India to Japan, via Pakistan and South East Asia.
The famous photo of Sharbat Gulathe young Afghan woman photographed by McCurry in 1984 in a refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, has become an absolute icon of world photography. Between ancestral traditions and contemporary cultures, the photographer’s photos immortalize portraits and landscapes with both documentary and artistic value.
• Caumont, art center. 3 Rue Joseph Cabassol, Aix-en-Provence. Until March 23. Every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Prices from €11.50 to €15.
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