La Vie des Plantes, 2024

Palais de l'Europe — 12 Oct – 25 Jan 2025 — by the museums of Menton in partnership with CIRVA

Menton, a French garden town close to the Italian border, is paying tribute to several generations of artists and designers who, since the 1980s, have taken an interest in the world of flora, from both an ornamental and an organic perspective. 

Through an environmentally responsible set design/ scenography based on the reuse of existing display units, this group exhibition presents pieces created by 12 artists at CIRVA, the International Glass and Visual Arts Research Centre in Marseille. Inspired by The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture, philosopher Emanuele Coccia’s seminal book, the Museum Gallery at Palais de l’Europe is presenting a selection of pieces from CIRVA’s collection, which were in turn inspired by the world of plants. The exhibition shows how the lives and growth processes of various flora feed into the work methods employed by artists.

Andrea BRANZI

Giuseppe CACCAVALE

CLAIRE + LÉA

Marie DUCATÉ

Hanneke FOKKELMAN

Gregory GRANADOS

Giuseppe PENONE

Buddy DI ROSA

Mathilde ROSIER

Pucci DE ROSSI

Ettore SOTTSASS

Exhibition curators

Stanislas Colodiet  

Director of CIRVA  

Guillaume Theulière  

Director of the Museums of Menton    

Exhibition design

Ahmad Reshad

In collaboration with Pavillon Bosio

Exhibition view. Photo: © Ahmad Reshad