NY Opens Immersive Digital Art Show

New York is hosting an immersive digital art exhibit with works by Gustav Klimt and others TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP
New York is hosting an immersive digital art exhibit with works by Gustav Klimt and others TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP
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NY Opens Immersive Digital Art Show

New York is hosting an immersive digital art exhibit with works by Gustav Klimt and others TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP
New York is hosting an immersive digital art exhibit with works by Gustav Klimt and others TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP

Art lovers in New York can now enjoy an immersive digital experience with works by Gustav Klimt projected onto the walls and floors of a building that used to be a bank.

The goal, its creators say, is to bring young people and others into a 21st-century museum.

The exhibit, called "Hall des Lumières," opens Wednesday in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood.

It follows similar shows called "Atelier des Lumières" in Paris and "Infinity des Lumières" in Dubai.

The shows are the work of a French company called Culturespaces, which is partnering in New York with events company IMG.

Culturespaces boss Bruno Monnier said these digital art shows around the world cater to youths and anybody else who does not go to traditional venues like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This nine-month show features works by Klimt and another Austrian, Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Classical and electronic music plays as their works are projected onto every conceivable surface inside the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, an early 20th-century building in the Beaux-Arts style.

"I do think it’s a fantastic way to introduce people to art and I think they are very complementary to great museums and art galleries of New York and in many cities around the world," said Stephen Flint Wood, Managing Director of IMG.

"You can come here in this atmosphere and be completely immersed and then go to museums and art galleries to see some paintings for yourself," he told AFP.



Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
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Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)

Nearly 1,000 firefighters and helicopters battled a wildfire about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of France's second-largest city Marseille on Friday, but officials said lower temperatures and increased humidity had improved the situation.

The 240-hectare (593 acres) wildfire flared up a week after a separate conflagration reached the northwestern outskirts of Marseille, forcing people to evacuate or into lockdown and temporarily shuttering the area's airport.

Pierre Bepoix, the colonel of rescue operations and deputy director for the area's firefighters, said 150 people had been evacuated, but firefighters had managed to save 150 homes and portions of the area's forests.

"It was a fire that swept through relatively dense vegetation ... which made our work particularly complicated," Bepoix told Reuters. "Obviously, priority was given to the preservation and protection of these homes and the lives that could be in these buildings."

Local officials said in a statement that 120 homes had been threatened by the fire, adding that it was not possible yet to identify any possible damage to them, and that two firefighters had been injured.

Meanwhile in Spain, a wildfire that broke out on Thursday evening in the central Toledo province and could be seen from downtown Madrid, ravaged 3,200 hectares of woodland.

Regional emergency services said early on Friday firefighters had secured the perimeter, though there were concerns over strong winds and high temperatures forecast throughout the day.