This year, to celebrate this edition, the event will be set up throughout the city, from the city center to the suburbs and it will include the old town as well. The lights are on display during the month of December and up to mid-January and, during this time, the public will be able to admire over 30 contemporary art works created by 30 different artists from the 90s onwards.
Luci d’Artista
The sponsors of the event are every year the local merchants who, in collaboration with the city council and some bigger corporations, become the partners of the event, participating in dressing up the streets and the buildings around downtown, not only with the Artists’ lights but also with other classic Christmas ornaments.
In addition to the exceptional Luci d'Artista Genoa will be indeed illuminated by the usual beautiful Christmas lightings like it happens each holiday season.
Every year, hundreds of people participate at the inauguration of the magnificent Luci d'Artista that delight the passersby from dusk to dawn. The theme changes from year to year and for this edition the lights need to be made with environmentally friendly materials and energy-efficient light sources because the theme chosen by the city council is sustainability.
For the inauguration, which takes place the first week in December, the lights in the old town are accompanied by a fairytale-like soundtrack and the lights alternate, turning on and off at the rhythm of the background music played by loudspeakers positioned around town for the occasion.
The crowds are always captured by such beauty, even those people who, as always, thought at the beginning that this initiative was a useless waste of money.
Some Artists’ lights blending with Christmas lights
With the Artists’ lights, the city becomes an open-air museum and the idea of bringing contemporary art out of the institutional spaces came from the desire to ‘educate’ the citizens to appreciate modern art and modern artists.
It was originally a project sponsored by the city council in collaboration with the Modern Art Gallery in Genoa which aimed at attracting young people to visit its collections.
With this project (which also takes place in other Italian cities around Christmas time or during the Summer) Genoa has become part of the “Arts on display,” a national and international art movement aiming at promoting new types of arts as long as new up and coming artists but if there are many cities in the world that can boast numerous public art works, this is the only city where works of lights are spread throughout different neighborhoods for everyone to see.
Some night buses and trams are organized by the city hall around the months of December and January so people can observe and admire the lights ‘in movement.’ On some special buses they replay the music of the inauguration so that riders can relive the experience of the first night of the Artists’ lights display or enjoy it for the first time if they were unable to attend the first time.
On foot or by bus the lights are amazing
The Artists’ lights may seem like an event for adults or art lovers but it appeals to the entire family, children included, because it’s a beautiful and fairly easy to understand form of art.
Lights have been part of the Christmas traditions for a long time and now they have been revisited to explore different themes and designs including at times even poetry or historical references.
Poetry as part of an art work
