THE LUMINOUS FACE

Pavillon Monticelli, Marseille, FR
15 – 17 October 2026
Solo Exhibition, Presented by Agence DS and Outrelieux

For three days in October, Simon Berger showed portraits and four glass cubes at the Pavillon Monticelli in Marseille, a house built in 1882 and for decades the seat of the British consulate. It was his first solo exhibition in the city.

The title refers to a long tradition in painting: the search for a face that seems to give off its own light. In Berger’s portraits, that light comes from the fractures themselves. Hung against black, every strike reads as a point of brightness, and the face gathers where the strikes are densest.

The cubes, Skull Cube, Half-Sphere Cube, Sphere Cube and Blue Ocean Cube, extended the portraits into three dimensions. Their forms appear in the depth of the glass and change with the daylight and the viewer’s position. The Blue Ocean Cube carries the colours of the sea, from deep blue to a pale, clear turquoise.

Credits
Agence DS, Outrelieux, Pavillon Monticelli
Photography: © NOA contemporary