Descending into the three levels beneath Frank Gehry’s LUMA Tower in Arles, visitors enter a world that feels more sacred crypt than gallery. This hushed, subterranean setting is not merely a backdrop; it harmonizes with David Armstrong’s work, whose photographs exist on a delicate threshold between intimacy and disappearance. The silence and penumbra of the space amplify the emotional gravitas of the images, inviting a contemplative experience.

Armstrong’s photographs are more than portraits; they are lived moments frozen in time. In his formative years with the Boston School, alongside figures like Nan Goldin and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, he cultivated an aesthetic of quiet devotion. His black-and-white images of friends, lovers, and outsiders portray a generation both introspective and rebelliously free. These portraits hold no artifice: they are candid, unfiltered, and alive with subtle vulnerability.

In contrast to the intimate human forms, Armstrong’s soft-focus landscapes offer a broader, more timeless meditation. Captured in the late 1980s amid the AIDS crisis, these scenes serve as poignant memento mori, reminders of life’s fragile and fleeting nature. Together with the portraits, they create a compelling dialogue between the personal and the existential, the intimate and the universal.

Fifteen years after Nan Goldin introduced his work to Arles during the Rencontres, LUMA Arles now presents one of David Armstrong’s most ambitious posthumous exhibitions, drawn entirely from his estate. Running from 5 July 2025 until 3 May 2026, the show encapsulates not only his melancholic aesthetic and archive’s tactile details, handwritten notes, contact sheets, vintage gelatin prints, but also his enduring impact on contemporary photography. It’s a deeply personal and artistically significant immersion into an era and a vision

This exhibition isn’t just about photos, it’s about presence, memory, and the poetic remnants of a vanished world, captured with quiet care and enduring sincerity.

More information HERE.

David Armstrong, Cookie at Bleecker St., NYC, 1977

David Armstrong, Mark, Provincetown, 1981

David Armstrong, George in the Water

David Armstrong, Rene at His Apartment

David Armstrong Archive, Stephen at Home, New York City, 1983

David Armstrong, Andrew as a Sailor, New Haven, 1996

David Armstrong, Chris at Elizabeth Street, New York City, 1979

David Armstrong, Avram, Boston, 1974

David Armstrong, Caroline at Land’s End Inn Party, Provincetown, 1976

David Armstrong, Provincetown, fin des années 1970

David, Boston, milieu des années 1970