Each winter, just at the point when those of us living in Europe’s northern reaches have hit the depths of darkest despair — which is to say, February — an intense green beam splits the Copenhagen night sky.
It is not an alien spaceship. It’s a work of art.
“Green Beam” is a signature part of the Copenhagen Light Festival, an annual collection of outdoor installations that inject glowing artistry into the long Nordic nights. But the Danish capital is hardly alone in this project. Through March, cities across Europe disperse winter’s gloom with light festivals that last anywhere from a couple of nights to several months.
Distinct from the decorative Christmas lights that go up in many cities around the world, these festivals are more expressive. Some, like Berlin’s, consist primarily of colorful illuminations of urban monuments and other landmarks. Others, like Prague’s (held in mid-October) or Copenhagen’s (Jan. 29 to Feb. 21), act as showcases for contemporary artworks that use light as their medium.
The festivals encourage both locals and visitors to see winter in, well, a new light. “We don’t want to hide the darkness,” said Frederikke Krogh, the Copenhagen festival program manager. “We want to embrace it.”
Here are some of this season’s other notable light festivals.
Turin, Italy
Luci d’Artista
Through Jan. 10
Luci d’Artista, which started in 1998, is one of Europe’s more ambitious light shows. It consists of a permanent collection of about 30 pieces, which are reinstalled each year, plus a few new works that are commissioned for each edition. “Ever since we began, my team and I have treated the project as a real contemporary art institution,” said the festival’s curator, Antonio Grulli.
The focus is on internationally recognized artists from Italy and abroad, though Mr. Grulli also includes midcareer and younger artists. Many share what he calls “a punk attitude,” as seen in the British artist Tracey Emin’s neon “Sex and Solitude,” which returns this year. But not all is provocation. “In the end, light in art, whether directly or indirectly, is always related to the spirit, to the soul of people,” Mr. Grulli said. “So with all the artists who work with light, there’s also a spiritual aspect that is very important.”
This year’s festival features a work by the American multimedia artist Tony Oursler that was inspired by his childhood memories of the first moon landing, as well as “The Radiant Van” — an ordinary van turned into a mobile magic lantern — from the Italian trio Canemorto.
Amsterdam’s famous canals play an important role in the Dutch capital’s light festival, which is now in its 15th edition. Placed along, next to and sometimes in the middle of the city’s historic waterways, the 20 or so works on display at the Amsterdam Light Festival can be easily reached on foot or bike, though they are perhaps best viewed from the water, whose reflective surface amplifies the colors and patterns and adds to the mystique.
“From a boat, you move through the city at another pace and height, seeing facades, bridges and artworks from viewpoints that are often impossible from the street,” said Pam Toonen, the festival’s artistic director. “The canal itself becomes part of how a work is perceived.”
For those without their own boats — or who are interested in obtaining more information about the artists and their works — the festival offers guided canal cruises (29.75 euros, or about $33) along the route.
Like previous editions, this year’s line-up includes Dutch artists like Touki Delphine, a collective that makes monumental light and sound installations from discarded materials, and international ones, like, Chila Kumari Burman, whose work explores Asian femininity.
Lyon, France
Fête des Lumières
Dec. 5 through 8
Lyon’s Fête des Lumières owes its origins to an 1852 religious procession that was intended to install a statue of the Virgin Mary at an older pilgrimage site. When heavy rains fell, city authorities canceled the planned fireworks, and the citizens of Lyon lit candles in their windows instead, starting an annual tradition. In 1989, the city began lighting its monuments, and a decade later, it launched the modern festival.
Today, a projection technology known as “video mapping” transforms those illuminations into vivid animations that match the exact contours of the buildings. This year, for example, three artists will enliven the St. Paul train station with careering lines and evocative music, while the city’s Gothic cathedral will appear to sprout flowers and other organic life.
The collection will include some free-standing artworks, and once again, intricate patterns of colored lights strung overhead along the Rue de la République will convert the street into a sparkly wonderland.
In addition to being the oldest light festival, Lyon is also among the largest: Roughly 2 million people visited last year.
Stockholm
Nobel Week Lights
Dec. 5 through 13
Stockholm receives about six hours of daylight on Dec. 10, the day when the Nobel Prizes are awarded each year. Stepping in to lighten that long stretch of darkness, as well as to spread a bit of the award ceremony’s excitement to the streets, is Nobel Week Lights. Now in its sixth year, the festival features roughly 20 installations by local and international artists who derive inspiration from Nobel laureates and their contributions.
This year’s edition includes “Fantastic Planet,” an illuminated maze in Gustav Adolfs Square, that allows visitors to test their “internal GPS” — an echo of the discovery that won a trio of researchers the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine. And in the courtyard of the Nobel Prize Museum itself, “Sol Machina,” inspired by the physicist Hans Bethe’s Nobel Prize-winning studies, transforms the sun’s energy into visible form.
Most of the works can be found in the city center, though some are in the Tensta neighborhood in the northwestern part of the city. Free guided tours in a variety of languages are available for both routes.
After last year’s edition attracted 450,000 visitors, the organizers of Lux Helsinki have extended the city’s festival to eight days this year, in addition to shifting its dates so it falls over the New Year’s Day holiday. The format, though, remains the same: Around 20 works, by both Finnish and international artists, punctuate outdoor spaces, while several galleries host their own light-based exhibitions indoors. This year’s program, whose theme is “the light between worlds,” will be revealed in early December.
Even more than in other cities, the weather plays a starring role in Helsinki’s festival. “It’s very, very cold, so that gives the festival an extreme Arctic feel,” said the artistic director, Juha Rouhikoski. “And if there’s snow, everything can be frosty and somehow very dreamy.”
But with climate change making that forecast less reliable, Mr. Rouhikoski also finds beauty in the snowless editions. “If the ground is black and the sky is clear, it will be very dark,” he said. “Which makes the artworks really pop.”
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