5 SHOWS is the Artissima twice-monthly feature that recommends 5 exhibitions not to be missed in various European cities, chosen from the viewpoint of curators and directors of important institutions familiar with the local context. A different way to find guidance in the discovery of contemporary art across borders, with a personal and always up-to-date perspective.
The eighth focus is on Marseille, with a selection by Véronique Collard-Bovy, Head of the Châteauvert contemporary art centre.
Here are the 5 exhibitions currently on view she has chosen for our readers:
Laure Prouvost. Au fort, les âmes sont
Mucem, fort Saint-Jean
Up to 28.09.2025
Video artist Laure Prouvost creates poetic installations in which images leave the screen to meet the viewer through objects, sculptures and materials. Her language is dreamlike, evoking surrealist imagery. It also subtly suggests the values dear to the artist: the celebration of life and its transformations, the fluidity of everything that links us, human beings, to our equals, to our predecessors, to the environments we inhabit, to flora and fauna.
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Laure Prouvost. Mère We Sea
Musées de Marseille, Centre de la Vieille Charité
Up to 11.01.2026
The Museums of Marseille are renewing their invitations to some of the most important artists on the international scene to create new works, closely linked to the history and architecture of the chapel at the Centre de la Vieille Charité. Laure Prouvost will unveil a monumental installation that she sees as a maternal and fertile figure, also summoning up the memories of those who, over the last three centuries, have inhabited and brought to life this space and the Panier district. It’s a dreamlike surprise with underwater influences, shimmering with aquatic reflections, that will involve the participation of the public.
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À l’œuvre #4
Centre Photographique Marseille
Up to 03.05.2025
For the 4th consecutive year, in 2024, À l’oeuvre will present an original exhibition of works supported by the Centre Photographique Marseille, showcasing the work of artists involved in a wide range of contemporary photographic practices. These creations are developed according to several registers of residence of creation or transmission, supported by the DRAC PACA, the Regional Direction of the Cultural Affairs Provence Alpes Côte-d’Azur.
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Comme un printemps, je serai nombreuse
Triangle-Astérides
Up to 08.06.2025
A slab of concrete and a smoking air vent occupy the middle of the exhibition space. These are the set pieces for Sonia Chiambretto’s Oasis Love (2023). Like all of the author and poet’s texts, this play multiplies points of view and features several voices, often childlike or youthful. Some of them appear in the bay window and on the facing wall, in the form of quotes.
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Éléonore False. Le Fil de chaîne
Frac Sud
Up to 23.11.2025
The Frac Sud – Cité de l’art contemporain is inviting artist Éléonore False to present within its walls a solo exhibition unprecedented in scale, showing a decade of creations and research exploring the image and its worlds of imagination. The exhibition title Le Fil de chaîne (“Warp Thread”) is borrowed from the vocabulary of fabric production, referring to the warp that, by intersecting with the weft, enables fabric to be created.
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If you want to discover the cities and institutions explored so far, here are the previous episodes:
Berlin | Athens | Porto | Zurich | Roma | Brussels | Stockholm
