Top Winter Art Expositions

The Ceramic Stories at the Villa Sauber in Monaco

Until January 30, 2021 

Pottery has a long established history in Monaco. «The Monte-Carlo Art Pottery Factory» with its typical floral and animalistic décor honoured the Principality’s fire-art back in 1874. In the early 20th century, many artists were favouring this creative technique. The «Monte-Carlo Pottery» founder and Cap d’Ail resident, Eugène Baudin, was one of them.

A unique tour through Villa Sauber is introducing us to this prolific ceramic period and some more contemporary art. The Picasso-signed works are witnessing the important role of the Madoura’s workshop, Vallauris, in the ceramic art’s aesthetic revolution.

The exhibition’s curator, Cristiano Raimondi, has opted for an original and thorough scenography featuring some 120 objects created by international artists. This unexpected venue, halfway between a workshop and a curiosities cabinet, is a collaboration of two designers, Swiss Adrien Rovero for the tables and Cypriot Michael Anastassiades for the light. There is a whole program detailing these «Elusive Artifices» and narrating some less known «ceramic stories».

NMNM. Villa Sauber
17, Avenue Princesse Grace, Monaco 
Tel (+377) 9898 9126 

«New Deals» at the Espace de l’Art Concret in Mouans-Sartoux

Until March 7, 2021

Promoting an abstract art culture, encouraging a dialogue between its different creators — this is a mission of the Espace de l’Art Concret. This year it is featuring a unique French collection of over 700 works, representing a number of trends in geometric abstraction.

An unprecedented display «New Deals» is paying tribute to donations recently made to the Albers-Honegger Foundation. This is a chance to discover such artists as German Sigurd Rompza combining painting and sculpture, playing with surfaces and space, using intricate colours and light, or French informal artist, EMMANUEL, donating a set of some forty works to the foundation.

The exhibition is giving us a broader vision of this often minimalist, radical, but fascinating art, questioning the very essence of creation.

Espace de l’Art Concret
Donation Albers-Honegger, Château de Mouans
Tel (+33)04 9375 7150
espacedelartconcret.fr

Antiquity meets Сontemporary Art at the Archaeological Museum in Nice 

Until March 28, 2021

One of the School of Nice’s most outstanding figures is taking over the Cimiez Archaeological Museum. « Sosno squats among Antiquity» is an original interaction of twenty monumental sculptures by the artist – working with the Roman remains at this major archaeological venue. Sosno has chosen «obliteration for a better expression of the presence». His voids, gaps and cuts only emphasize the essence of a figure. This artistic language is perfectly suited for these ruins — we only get to see a small part, having to guess what the whole structure was like.

Sosno’s gods and heroes, like Venus, Poseidon, the Discobolus, feature bright, stark colours, offering a new dimension of space and vision of the Roman baths and alleys. The surrounding buildings and the Matisse Museum are also perceived under a different light.

This walk, with clever scenography designed by the artist’s widow, Mascha Sosno, and Director of Nice Archaeological Museums, Bertrand Roussel, holds many surprises. Playing with lines and shapes, they have created a number of «eye traps» suggesting a new reality across landscapes and centuries. 

This exhibition is not to be missed. This visit is particularly enjoyable at the very start of spring, when nature is reborn and the gardens sprinkled with new colours.

Archaeological Museum
160, Avenue des Arènes de Cimiez, Nice
Tel. +33(0)4 9381 5957

«The 165 Metre Long Mermaid and Other Stories» at the Villa Paloma in Monaco

Until May 2, 2021

A rope is forging links between Monaco, the Japanese city of Fukuoka via Australia and the west coast of the United States… This amusing and not quite rational journey is Shimabuku’s dream coming true. This year, the Villa Paloma is exhibiting the artist’s legendary work «I’m traveling with a 165-metre mermaid».

«A good traveler has no itinerary and no concept of a destination», Lao Tzu famously said. He leaves himself at the mercy of winds, landscapes, encounters, animals, vegetation and sounds of life. That’s exactly what Shimabuku is doing. Before choosing a career as an artist he wanted to become a poet or a tourist guide… These days he is travelling the world.

The town of Fukuoka, in southern Japan, exposed him to the legend of a 165-metre long mermaid. The artist then bought a rope of the same length, hoping to grasp this woman-fish’s mystery and bring the myth into reality.

Acquired by the New National Museum of Monaco in 2018, «I’m traveling with a 165-metre mermaid» is the starting point of the exhibition. Following Shimabuku in his epic travels, we are witnessing a meeting of mermaids and octopuses, a fish and a potato, or pickles being made aboard a barge…

NMNM. Villa Paloma
56, Boulevard du Jardin Exotique, Monaco 
Tel +377 9898 4860