On the last day in May, a constellation of 600 illuminated drones opened the 2024 season for LUMA and the Vincent Van Gogh Foundation in Arles. Accompanied by Joep Beving's melancholy piano music and the croaking of local frogs, the drones swooped and swirled like a flock of birds in the night sky, shape-shifting, disappearing and reappearing, changing colour, their glow reflected in the stainless steel bricks of Frank Gehry's tower. Specially conceived for the occasion by the Amsterdam-based artists Drift, the performance was an homage to fellow Dutchman Van Gogh and his La Nuit Etoilée (Starry Night over the Rhone). Painted in Arles in 1888, the masterpiece is now back in the city for the first time since its creation.
