New Culturespaces exhibition dazzles Dortmund with Barco-enabled digital art

The Culturespaces “des Lumières” concept decks out fascinating venues in a mesmerizing display of lights and sounds devoted to some of the most famous artists in the history of art. The Barco-powered immersive exhibitions in France attract over one million visitors per year who have all been able to feast their eyes on digitised works of art from the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet and Salvador Dalí. With the new Phoenix des Lumières, Culturespaces comes to Germany for the first time.

Context

Phoenix des Lumières, set in the German city of Dortmund, gets its name from being housed in the former Phoenix West steel factory district. Five years after the closure of the factory, early 2000s, a plan was implemented to convert the iconic site into a cultural space. It now houses trendy traditional breweries, avant-garde art galleries, and peaceful parks that have brought the district back to life.

Culturespaces, one of the pioneers of immersive digital exhibitions, was entrusted with the management of the Phoenixhalle, the old gas blower hall for the steelworks plant, which they renovated and transformed into their latest digital art centre.

Challenge

As the ‘des Lumières’ formula goes, the distinctive architecture of the building is a showcase that highlights the works of the most famous artists in the history of art and provide visitors with an exceptional immersive experience.

In Dortmund, the tailored exhibitions are designed to complement the immense structure of the historical industrial complex with its 13-metre-high walls and a total of 5600m² projection surface (walls and floor).

To honor the artworks and to create that unforgettable immersive feeling for the visitors, the unique canvas requires visualization technology that’s bright, razor-sharp, and stable in offering great images from edge to center.

Solution

Thanks to a long track record of successful collaborations, Barco was the obvious choice as projection partner for the Germany-based installation. “They were with us while working on our first digital art centre in Les-Baux-de-Provence, France, and we continue to rely on their technology throughout our expansion journey,” explains Luca Czakanski, Head of AV Department at Culturespaces. “The Barco team and their products always deliver. Together we can create those high-quality immersive experience that we want to give our visitors.”

To mark its opening, Phoenix des Lumières presents an immersive exhibition exploring a century of Viennese painting and offering a one-of-a-kind look at the work of Gustav Klimt and his successors through a plethora of colors, nudes, and golds.

The deployment of around one hundred G62-W11 and F80 laser projectors and the wide range of the Barco lens portfolio results in the right amount of punch and pixels to truthfully present these large-scale digital art works onto practically any surface and from any distance.

Results

“Culturespaces was founded to create a show where people come and experience art in a different way, and Phoenix des Lumières is another successful example of this mission,” says Larissa Cremer, Head of Marketing and Communications at Culturespaces.

The new centre has welcomed 250K visitors already in its first six months and received raving feedback. “You can truly see the happiness in the eyes of our visitors who say they’ve never experienced something like this before.”