In Arles, LUMA, Frank Gehry's scenic skyscraper/sculpture

Thanks to its location - in the heart of the Provence Alpes/Côte d'Azur - the town of Arles, a jewel founded by the Romans on the Rhône River, still retains the charm and colours of a bygone era that mix and blend well with those of the present. Van Gogh lived here for a long time (he painted some of his most famous works here, such as The Sunflowers, The Chair and Le café la nuit) and walking through the old town, past houses with peeling façades, small squares always crowded regardless of the season, breathtaking views, small shops, typical restaurants and monuments made of white stone such as the striking Roman Amphitheatre, so reminiscent of the one in Verona, and the Colosseum - we recommend a visit to LUMA Arles, the spectacular skyscraper/sculpture created by Frank Gehry under the supervision of Maja Hoffman, founder and executive president of LUMA Foundation and LUMA Arles.

There are more than ten exhibitions, including current and new ones, including one dedicated to David Armstrong, which is, to say the least, unmissable. This is the story, through his photographic work, of an artist who died in 2014, capable like few of having immortalised in intimate and essential images (there is Nan Goldin) a generation and its approach to life. What emerges is his melancholic aesthetic and his great influence on contemporary photography, representing with his free and seductive lens, men and women without lies or filters. Particularly noteworthy is People Planet Profi, the first monographic exhibition in France by Peter Fischli - his unique way of pointing out how capitalism affects our lives every day - Les Climats du Paysage by architect/landscape architect Bas Smets, to whom we owe the Parc des Ateliers at LUMA, as well as Notre-Dame in Paris and Antwerp.

Moving on to Place Félix Rey, you will find L'Espace Van Gogh, the former main hospital of Arles (L'Hotel Dieu), where this visionary of painting was hospitalised between December 1888 and May 1889 after having his ear cut off. The rooms around the courtyard, which has become one of his famous paintings, will host some of the most interesting exhibitions of Les rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles, an event that has been transforming the Provençal city into a kind of open-air laboratory for contemporary images for over fifty years. Striking are the black-and-white photos by New Yorker Erica Lennard in which nudity "is an invitation to subvert the codes of seduction", as curator Clara Bouveresse explains.Le monde de Louis Stettner (1922-2016), recounted in the exhibition of the same name curated by Virginie Chardin, is an emotional potpourri of his having always been a photographer capable of immortalising everyday American reality while adding his passion for political and social ideals. Les Présages d'une lueur intérieure, the title of the exhibition by the American Todd Hido (1968), presents instead a whole series of works thanks to which he managed to capture moments of possible beauty in landscapes that are often desolate, a clear reference to David Lynch's films. The truest reality was best told - always including the good and the bad - by the Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia, paid homage to in the fascinating Chapelle Saint-Martin du Méjan with the exhibition Always in search of life, curated by Walter Guadagnini, artistic director of CAMERA, in Turin. A project born thanks to the collaboration with the Archivio Letizia Battaglia that brings 160 images to the French town, including original and modern prints, as well as 20 documents including magazines and newspapers by the Palermo-born photographer.