For our 578th Art Gathering, we are visiting the exhibition “Lumina: The Art of Color and Light,” hosted at the Arkas Art Center—a true gem in İzmir.
“Lumina” serves as the inaugural major exhibition of a five-year partnership (2026–2031) between the Arkas Art Center and the Paris-based Centre Pompidou, bringing together 83 works from the Centre Pompidou’s collection. Curated by Anna Hiddleston and Noémie Fillon, the exhibition explores the evolution of color and light in art from the early 20th century through the 1970s across seven thematic sections. The selection features pioneering figures of modern and contemporary art, including Georges Braque, Vassily Kandinsky, Gerhard Richter, Joan Mitchell, Bridget Riley, and Victor Vasarely. According to the exhibition’s official promotional and press materials, the name “Lumina”—the Latin word for “lights”—underscores that light is not limited to a single source; rather, color owes its very existence to light, and in modern art, the relationship between the two has increasingly become a matter of perception. The texts highlight how Newton’s scientific understanding of the spectrum, combined with Goethe’s approach—which imbued color with perceptual and emotional dimensions—transformed the ways in which artists engage with light. In this spirit, the exhibition invites visitors on a journey centered on the idea that “seeing is never a passive act.” In this context, the first section explores how Fauvist artists liberated color from its descriptive function, transforming it into an independent expressive force, and how they captured the light of the Mediterranean through innovative uses of color. It then traces the evolution of light—from its emergence as a form of energy in art following the spread of electric lighting, to the relationship between color and music (and the phenomenon of synesthesia), the experimental connection between photography and light, the influence of natural light and landscape on artists, the "Color Field" approach—where color becomes an autonomous medium of expression—and finally, "Op Art," which utilizes optical illusions to evoke a sense of light and movement. Through this partnership, the Lucien Arkas Art Center will host exhibitions drawn from the Centre Pompidou collection over a five-year period, presenting a total of 10 exhibitions—two per year—to art enthusiasts. The fact that significant works from the Centre Pompidou’s collection can be viewed in İzmir while the museum in Paris remains closed for renovations adds a special dimension to the exhibition. The significance of this collaboration is further underscored by Lucien Arkas’s remark, “This is not just an exhibition for İzmir; it is an exhibition for all of Turkey,” and by the observation of Centre Pompidou President Laurent Le Bon: “İzmir is light; İzmir is color.”
Wednesday, October 28
12:00–13:00