In Bacalan, an industrial area of Bordeaux, the grey, rundown exterior of a German-built submarine base does not ignite high artistic expectations of what is to be found on the inside. But never judge an exhibition by its external concrete walls. Klimt: Gold and Colours and Paul Klee: Painting Music at Les Bassins de Lumières is the most stunning, immersive and soul-stirring exhibition I have ever been to.
Brought to tears several times while walking around the dark, vastness to the sound of classical music and the smell of damp concrete, the genius of juxtaposing ugly, warlike architecture with Mozart’s music and artwork by Klimt and Klee, provokes a staggering sensual overload.
This U-boat bunker was built by the Kriegsmarine in 1941 to house German and Italian submarines in its four 100-metre pens. Despite the darkness, the size and solidity of the building are immediately apparent and slightly intimidating. This architectural beast was constructed in the early 1940s by political prisoners using 600,000 cubic metres of concrete; its indestructible walls were barely damaged by repeated Allied bombing attempts during the Second World War.
But what to do with such a building in the 21st century? A €14 million transformation into the largest digital art installation in the world needed years of technical and architectural expertise before this exhibition was opened to the public. Nearly 100 specially-adapted video projection devices beam the artwork onto the 12,000 square metres of projection space, taking into account damp, salty air and not insignificant architectural constraints. (There are huge openings between each pen, great thick walls and a lot of water to work around).
Sound engineers synchronise works by Wagner, Beethoven and Strauss to the intricately changing, multi-faceted imagery to create a fully-immersive and dazzling experience for visitors. The sound system includes 80 speakers. This is art in industrial, or should I say military, size. German naval commanders could never have possibly imagined that the interior walls of this bunker would one day be covered entirely by brightly-coloured flower mosaics and digitised images of sailing boats.
Artistic director Gianfranco Iannuzzi explains the aim of these two art forms coming together: “The music illuminates and adds depth to what we’re seeing, taking us further and deeper, either in harmony or in counterpoint of the images”.
The results are spellbinding. Entering through massive metal doors, we were met by Klimt’s Field of Poppies across a giant expanse of wall. You are instantly engulfed. Millimetre- and second-perfect precision fills the entire space with glorious colour, light and sound moving together as one. It’s almost hallucinogenic.
One of Klimt’s best-known paintings, Lady in Gold, which was created in 1907 with oil paint and gold leaf, is reproduced and amplified on the crumbling bunker walls. Adèle Bloch-Bauer’s face in giant form, multiplied and displayed in full 360°.
The Tree of Life, painted in 1909, unfurls its branches, creating a magic, golden wonderland. Its reflection in the water magnifies the dreamscape — shimmering images on water, which once carried military submarines in an exquisite metamorphosis of this colossal building.
Merging images one into the other, the walls are transformed by Klimt’s masterpieces, and his love of painting women is very evident. Water Serpents II floats across the back wall as The Bride is projected onto another alongside The Dancer and The Lady with Hat & Feather Boa.
As the show moves to works by Klee, the German artist’s abstract style, clearly influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, generates a less romantic feel. Klee was an accomplished musician himself and even wrote in his diary about the “parallels between music and the visual arts”. Moonlight, painted in 1919, soon evolves into The Goldfish, a giant fish which moves gracefully across the walls and, more appropriately, as a reflection in the water. His work is projected to the sound of The Magic Flute, written by Mozart, one of Klee’s favourite composers.
The Portrait of Pastor Kol, painted in 1932, glides into Town by the Canal and the Fire at Full Moon. The images are brilliantly deconstructed and reconstructed, fading in and fading out. Klee was spot on when he observed that “One eye sees, the other feels”, and the exhibition’s art directors have succeeded in giving such an experience to all those who visit.
There is a separate sideshow in the Citerne where visitors can lie on giant beanbags and have images projected onto them while lying there in a golden haze — and if an already sensory-battered brain needed even greater immersion. And the Cube is a soundproofed 220m2 room displaying trippy, contemporary digital artwork, some of which is created through data collected in the oceans, magicked into an unintelligible algorithm and projected as a light show onto the Cube walls. A giant submarine floats across from one corner in a nod to the building’s past, and crazy wave formations leap around to music which sounds like noises from the deep. One sequence seems to replicate life inside a submarine as tubes and pipes forming a claustrophobic corridor rush out towards you. It is psychedelic and industrial and unmistakably sea-related.
My teenage children adored the entire exhibition, although admittedly raised their eyes to the ceiling when I had to watch the 35-minute sequence “just one more time”, at least twice more. Feeling part of the art, not just looking at it — this show blew my mind, had me downloading Mozart the minute I stepped outside.
