Like many children growing up in Juan-les-Pins, artist Gaspare di Caro spent his youth fascinated by the abandoned Provençal hotel. As a teenager, he climbed the façade like an adventurer to enter the mysterious world of this grand palace, built in 1925 and closed in 1976. Today, di Caro has transformed the historic building into a luminous work of art that brings its storied past back to life.
As night falls, the building's façades unfold a spectacular light show featuring blues, turquoise, orange, and green hues. Using his brushes of light, the artist—well-known throughout the region for his previous works—has awakened the memory of this place, much like a painter bringing life to a sleeping face. "Chaplin lived here, and so did Marilyn Monroe," he whispers reverently. The walls still vibrate with memories of Miles Davis, Picasso, Cocteau, Marlene Dietrich, and countless other luminaries who once graced these halls.
The building holds special significance for locals, as an entire generation has gazed upon it wondering if they would ever see it renovated. After 50 years, that dream has finally materialized. "I wanted to respect this history, its elegance, by creating a work that dialogues with the past and opens a window to an artistic message," reveals the artist. His inspiration stems from "the encounter between architecture and imagination."
Di Caro's work represents a hymn to precision and respect. "Each beam is adjusted to embrace the architecture without altering it. It's the work of a light couturier," he describes. This illumination has nothing to do with mere decoration—his role is to reveal rather than add. "Light doesn't add to the building; it reveals what is already there, buried. Even monuments frozen in time can rediscover a pulse, a breath," he explains.
The artist's approach is both minimalist and sustainable. "Where others would use tens of kilowatts, I work with just a few hundred watts," he notes. Using only twelve projectors placed 72 meters from the building, the entire installation consumes no more electricity than half a microwave oven. His technique, called luminography, relies on images that are pre-calculated and drawn in perspective using the same camera obscura developed in the 16th century by Giambattista della Porta and used by Canaletto—a closed box with a small hole through which light passes to project an inverted image of the outside world.
Di Caro recently established his new headquarters in Cannes after retrieving the keys last week. He is relocating his operations from Italy, saying, "That's it, it's decided—I'm setting up my offices in Cannes. Everything—research, optical development, and image processing—will now be done from hangar number 1 at Cannes-Mandelieu Airport." He promises to share his knowledge through workshops organized at this new location.
The artist's impressive portfolio includes video mapping for the Templars in Biot, the Saint-Claire chapel in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, churches in Cannes, the train station, and the lower part of Clemenceau Street. Internationally, he has worked on major projects including Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil and Havana Cathedral in Cuba during Pope Benedict XVI's visit. Through his innovative luminography technique, di Caro continues to bridge the gap between historical architecture and contemporary artistic expression, breathing new life into beloved landmarks while preserving their essential character.
