The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Embassy of Monaco in Russia are presenting an exhibition titled ‘Monaco. Artists’ Stories’, showcasing the modern and contemporary art of the Principality. The project is a story of friendship between two artists, Gérard Pettiti and Claude Rosticher, whose selection of art will introduce the wider public to Monaco’s unique artistic tradition.

The works of these two artists differ both in their pictorial style and the themes they choose to address. Nonetheless, they are unanimous in connecting their art with different aspects of the natural world. Whereas Pettiti gravitates towards the implications of the animal kingdom, his counterpart tends to explore the plant kingdom. For both artists, nature is what allows them to stay in tune with time and space.

Gérard Pettiti is in pursuit of plastic and psychological parallels between the ferial and the human, creating forceful portraiture of different living creatures. As for Claude Rosticher, a reputed master of Monegasque art, he addresses in his oeuvre the phenomena of the natural environment: sky, stars, and plants. But he also expresses his belief in the individual’s freedom within the world around us. His study of space by means of installations, happenings and painting began when he founded a conceptual art group the Sign (1968-1974) and continues to this day.

The display features not only works by Péttiti and Rosticher. It also addresses the art of their predecessors, being the mentors and authority figures for the Monaco art scene: Albert Diato, Léo Ferré, Armand Gatti, Luis Molné, the masters of the 20th century who took part in the making of  European Modernism and Postmodernism. Photo and video documentation of these artists’ heritage are part of the display and provide an overall pattern for the development of Monegasque culture and art scene during the 20th and 21st centuries.

The project carries on the long-standing tradition of cultural exchange between Russian and Monegasque artistic institutions that dates back to the 19th century and remains to the present day.

‘Monaco, Artists’ Stories’ will be presented at the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow from July 9th to August 11th, at the Rostov Regional Museum of Fine Arts from August 23rd to September 22nd and at the Russian Orthodox Cultural and Spiritual Centre in Paris from October 11th to November 1st, 2019.