Skiing in Courchevel this winter means more than carving through perfect alpine snow. It also means encountering art at altitude. The renowned outdoor exhibition "L’Art au Sommet" ("Art at the Summit") transforms the legendary ski resort into a true open-air museum, where monumental sculptures and original works dialogue with the mountains. Now in its 17th edition, the project is developed in collaboration with the Galeries Bartoux and continues to redefine the relationship between art and nature.
Spread across the slopes and villages of Courchevel from Courchevel 1850 to La Tania, Le Praz, Moriond and Courchevel Village. This year’s exhibition features seven works by Italian sculptor Andrea Roggi and five sculptures by French artist Bruno Catalano. Skiers and pedestrians alike encounter these powerful forms unexpectedly, as if art itself were part of the landscape. Large-format photographic banners also extend the exhibition throughout the villages, ensuring that the artistic journey continues even off the slopes.
Guided tours, organized in partnership with the FACIM Foundation, take place on Thursdays, offering visitors deeper insight into the artists’ visions. The inauguration was held in the presence of Mayor Jean-Yves Pachod and the artists themselves, a symbolic moment confirming Courchevel’s role as a cultural as well as sporting destination.
I am especially drawn to the work of Bruno Catalano, whose iconic Voyageurs feel perfectly at home in a place defined by movement and passage. Catalano is an artist of travelers' figures captured mid-journey, frozen in a moment of departure or arrival. Born in Morocco in 1960, he left his homeland at the age of 10 to settle in Marseille. By 20, he was working at sea, living a nomadic life that would later shape his artistic identity.
Catalano discovered sculpture in the 1990s, but a casting accident in 2004 changed everything: a gap appeared in one of his works. Instead of correcting it, he embraced it. That “absence” became central to his language. His emblematic figures of men, women and children holding suitcases are defined as much by what is missing as by what remains. These voids suggest memory, loss, displacement and inner worlds that the viewer is invited to imagine.
His sculptures freeze time around anonymous trajectories. They do not tell a single story. They ask questions. Who are these travelers? What have they left behind? What are they carrying beyond their luggage? In Courchevel, surrounded by mountains and motion, Catalano’s figures feel both fragile and determined, suspended between past and future.
Andrea Roggi brings a completely different, yet equally poetic energy to the alpine landscape. Born in 1962 in Castiglion Fiorentino, Tuscany, Roggi was drawn early to painting and poetry before committing fully to sculpture. A pivotal moment in his artistic life came during a visit to Florence, where Masaccio’s "The Trinity" fresco in Santa Maria Novella profoundly affected him. From that moment on, Roggi pursued sculpture as a spiritual and philosophical language.
In 1991, he founded his studio La Scultura di Andrea Roggi and began working in bronze using the lost-wax casting method. To refine his process, he even studied chemistry and metallurgy, allowing him to personalize and perfect his technique. His celebrated Trees of Life series is inspired by the ancient cypress and olive trees surrounding his studio. Human figures grow out of branches, merge with roots, and dissolve into foliage, forming a magical realism where humanity and nature become one.
Roggi’s sculptures are not just figurative; they are allegorical. His trees embody time, history and the cosmos. The bronze itself becomes a metaphor for the transformation of humanity, which is shaped by space, memory and experience. In Courchevel’s vast alpine setting, his works feel timeless, grounding the viewer in something both cosmic and intimate.
L’Art au Sommet succeeds because it doesn’t impose art on nature. It lets the two converse. Roggi’s cosmic trees and Catalano’s silent travelers resonate deeply in a place defined by movement, elevation and reflection. Skiers encounter these works unexpectedly, slowing down not just their pace, but their gaze. In Courchevel, art is no longer confined to galleries. It lives on the slopes, in the villages and in the open air where sculpture meets snow, and contemplation meets altitude.
