Celestial Love Letter

Famous for his luminous sculptures, Paris-based artist JEAN-MICHEL OTHONIEL opens his largest exhibition yet in Avignon, inviting viewers to pause and fall in love with art anew.

- By Y-JEAN MUN-DELSALLE

Jean-Michel Othoniel’s work is poetic, monumental, and profoundly personal at the same time, despite its elusiveness. As one of France’s most visionary living artists, he is known for his luminous glass and metal sculptures and large-scale architectural installations. “Othoniel Cosmos or The Ghosts of Love”, his most ambitious exhibition to date, is currently on view in Avignon. In a brilliant constellation of art, memory, and emotion, the solo exhibition transforms the City of Popes with 270 works that span 10 landmark sites.

Born in 1964 in Saint-Étienne, France, Othoniel started his artistic career in the late 1980s. His breakthrough came in 1993, when he realised the expressive potential of glass while working with Murano’s master artisans. Since then, glass has been his signature medium. Seductive yet fragile, it reflects the emotional terrain he explores: transformation, beauty, longing, and spirituality.

Avignon brings his ideas to life in an unprecedented way. It runs until 4 January 2026 and takes over the entire city—from the Gothic splendour of the Papal Palace to the fabled Pont d’Avignon (Bridge of Avignon)—through chapels, museums, and public gardens. Each site is a stop in a pilgrimage of love. Othoniel notes that it is a first in France, perhaps the world, for a city to hand over all of its cultural properties to one artist.