Chiaroscuro runs until August 24, 2026, at Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris. Light and shadow have always been central to painting, from Caravaggio to Velázquez. This exhibition brings that tradition into the present, showing how contemporary artists explore light, darkness, and the space in between. Curators Emma Lavigne and Jean-Marie Gallais guide visitors through five works that make history, material, and perception meet. The show is spectacular!

The building itself has been transformed into a sensory space of twilight, dawn and dusk, where light and darkness interact. The idea is not only to show dramatic contrasts like those in Caravaggio’s work, but to use light and shadow as a way of thinking about what’s visible and what’s hidden in the world around us.

Sigmar Polke’s Axial Age (2005–2007) fills the room like a glowing chapel. Polke was fascinated by alchemy and by Goya. His thin, almost liquid canvases are layered with gold, copper, violet, and white, creating surfaces that change with the light. Here, the light comes from behind the paintings, revealing their transparency and movement. The metal structure around the canvases turns the gallery into a sacred, chapel-like space.

More highlights include Pierre Huyghe’s Camata (2024), a desert of imagination. A 19th-century skeleton, preserved by dry conditions, is surrounded by moving mechanical arms and small amulets. The work explores human rituals, technology, and how life and death intersect. The piece constantly changes, so no two viewers see exactly the same version. Days and nights stretch, creating a sense of timelessness.

James Lee Byars’s installation is about fragility and transcendence. Thousands of red roses slowly fade over the exhibition. Gold surfaces shine like light, referencing the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto and Venetian churches. A single golden column connects the earthly and spiritual, while a camel-hair rope reminds us of labor, life, and mortality. The space feels like a tomb made of light and memory.

Victor Man’s Titiriteros (2023) brings chiaroscuro into today. Inspired by Caravaggio and El Greco, Man paints three figures, a monkey, a pierrot, and an older man, around a small burning paper. Modern touches like a denim jacket connect history to the present. His greenish palette and skillful use of shadow and light continue the tradition of dramatic painting.

Bill Viola’s Fire Woman (2005) immerses the viewer in elemental forces. A woman in a long tunic faces flames, which merge into water as she disappears. The work reflects life, death, destruction, and purification, inspired by a near-death accident in Viola’s youth. It creates a sense of the sublime, connecting personal experience to nature and the wider world.

Across the Bourse de Commerce, these important works make light and shadow come alive. From Polke’s glowing canvases to Huyghe’s desert rituals, from Byars’s golden mausoleum to Man’s historical figures and Viola’s elemental vision, the exhibition shows how light and dark continue to shape art and perception.