More than 2,000 square meters of exhibition space characterizes the sprawling Villa Carmignac on Île de Porquerolles, a small island off the southernmost tip of France. Around 37 acres of gardens and a contemporary villa reimagined from a historic farmhouse frames installations by some of contemporary art’s leading artists like Ed Ruscha and Bruce Nauman.

This year, the multidisciplinary exhibition The Inner Island celebrates the villa’s Mediterranean surrounds through more than eighty artworks by artists including Peter Doig, Camille Henrot, Marcella Barceló, Helen Frankenthaler, Andrew Cranston, and many more. Works that reference the island itself, whether made a few years ago or more than a century ago, have been curated into an “archipelago” throughout numerous galleries in what the foundation affectionately refers to as a mise en abyme, a picture that appears within a picture of itself.

“The Villa Carmignac is set at the heart of a national park and on a listed site,” says a statement. No additional construction is authorized due to its historic significance, so the expansion involved digging down, adding subterranean levels to maintain the house’s existing contours and remaining sympathetic with the surrounding natural landscape. The brainchild of Édouard Carmignac, who envisioned transforming the property into a place dedicated to the arts, it was designed by Nice-based studio Atelier Marc Barani.

The Inner Island continues through November 5. Find more on the organization’s website and Instagram.

Header image: Nils-Udo, Lacouvée, 2018. © Fondation Carmignac. Photo by Nils-Udo

All images courtesy of Fondation Carmignac