lenticular artworks explore color of light in BMW’s green ray exhibition at rencontres d’arles

The Green ray by Mustapha Azeroual and Marjolaine Lévy

In The Green Ray exhibition at the Cloister of Saint-Trophime during the Rencontres d’Arles, self-taught artist Mustapha Azeroual and curator Marjolaine Lévy delve into the color of light through a series of abstract lenticular artworks. Part of the BMW ART MAKERS program, the show is a collaborative experiment involving the artist, curator, and sailors navigating the high seas worldwide. Azeroual and Lévy asked these travelers to photograph sunsets and sunrises, then transformed the images into color-changing forms to capture the essence of light and color. ‘I tried to find that sensitive point of photography,’ Azeroual shared during the exhibition preview attended by designboom. ‘This installation is telling you that you’re not gonna see images, but you’re gonna see the effect,’ he added.

The exhibition is on view in Arles, France, until September 29th, 2024, and is set to be redesigned for Paris Photo at the Grand Palais, Paris.

BMW ART MAKERS’ Winning Duo Explores Light and Perception

For over a decade, Mustapha Azeroual (find more here) has focused his abstract work on exploring the color of light. As a self-taught artist with a background in science, he uses photography to investigate perception and sensation. The Green Ray exhibition emerged from Azeroual’s meeting with Marjolaine Lévy (find more here), a contemporary art historian and curator. Lévy, who specialized in narrative socialized abstraction. Their collaboration led to winning the third edition of BMW ART MAKERS, a program by BMW Group (find more here) that grants artistic freedom to an artist-curator duo annually.

In The Green Ray exhibition, Mustapha Azeroual and Marjolaine Lévy explore the rare optical phenomenon of the green ray, previously referenced by Jules Verne and Marcel Duchamp. This green dot appears briefly at sunrise or sunset. The duo uses lenticular panopticons—images that change based on the viewing angle—to create an immersive experience showcasing what the human eye typically misses. The large-scale panels, featuring colors from pinks and blues to vibrant yellows and greens, are crafted from photographs taken by sailors navigating the Arctic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, as well as the Mediterranean. ‘What are you see is abstract landscapes, images taken by sailors in the sea. We asked them to take pictures of sunsets and sunrise during their sail and we got back around 80 images,’ explains Marjolaine Lévy. ‘The abstractions are made from photographic reality. (…)Those pictures have been dissolved by blurring to extract their color and to show their radiance. (…) The colors of the sunset are linked to our activity, and to our presence on Earth. They are related to the pollution we cause to the Earth. It’s very interesting,’ adds Mustapha Azeroual. This abstract presentation poetically reflects the impact of climatic phenomena and human activities on the skies and seas. Azeroual and Lévy’s blurred visions ultimately suggest a broader degeneration: that of our planet. 

project info: 

name: The Green Ray 

artist: Mustapha Azeroual | @mustapha.azeroual

curator: Marjolaine Lévy | @marjolaine.levy

organizer: BMW Group | @bmwgroupculture

partnership program: BMW ART MAKERS

event: Les Rencontres d’Arles | @rencontresarles