NMNM – Nouveau Musée National de Monaco
Les Années folles de Coco Chanel
NMNM — Villa Paloma
Exhibition curator: Célia Bernasconi
Set designer : Christophe Martin
Guest artist : Chloé Royer
With the support of CHANEL
Open to the public: June 19 – September 28, 2025
Presented at Villa Paloma during the summer of 2025, the exhibition “Coco Chanel’s Roaring Twenties” explores Gabrielle Chanel’s prolific production in the 1920s, re-evaluating the importance of seaside resorts such as Deauville, Biarritz and Monte-Carlo in the couturier’s creative process and the image she created for her house.
Coco Chanel’s Roaring Twenties were a time of modernity. Drawing on a selection of emblematic textile creations from the decade, the exhibition pays tribute to the resolutely visionary nature of Chanel’s approach to inventing the “new woman”.
Drawing on the story of her friendships with many modern artists, including Jean Cocteau, who commissioned costumes for the theater before associating her with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the exhibition offers a fresh look at the transdisciplinary dimension of these collaborations and highlights the influence of Slavic culture in her aesthetic.
Gabrielle Chanel’s Russian collections (1922-1923) will be compared with the graphic and textile productions of two women working at the crossroads of art, fashion and theater: Sonia Delaunay and Natalia Goncharova, who worked to translate the principles of the artistic avant-garde into the printed motifs, embroidery and cuts of their creations.
Finally, the exhibition will evoke La Pausa, Gabrielle Chanel’s dream home, built in 1929 on the heights of Roquebrune Cap-Martin, a few kilometers from Monaco.
Cactus
NMNM — Villa Sauber
Exhibition curator: Marc Jeanson (botanist at the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris)) andLaurent Le Bon (Peésident of Centre Pompidou)
Set designer : Jasmin Oezcebi
Open to the public : July 6 — January 11, 2025
After the exhibition created in 2024 by the Fondation Jardin Majorelle for the YVES SAINT LAURENT Museum in Marrakech, Marc Jeanson, botanist at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, and Laurent Le Bon, President of the Centre Pompidou, have designed this new “Cactus” series for the NMNM.
Simple shapes, fractal figures, muted, muted or brilliant colors, spiny, downy, shaggy or waxy gangues, fleshy, velvety organs, extravagant architectures – few plant families display as much formal diversity as that of the cacti.
Along with plants from other botanical families known as succulents (aloes, agaves…), they have become symbols of the Côte d’Azur and Monaco, where the Exotic Garden opened to the public in 1933, but was first planned by Prince Albert I in the late 19th century.
Objects of fascination for centuries, the aesthetic appeal of these plants has spanned the history of the visual arts, including photography and painting, cinema and western sets, and the decorative arts. Even today, their capacity for adaptation and resilience in the face of erratic resources resonates with our own questions.
This exhibition aims to show the extraordinary diversity and uniqueness of cacti and succulents, and their rich iconographic, ornamental and ethnological history, by creating dialogues between ancient works of art and more contemporary creations.
Featuring a combination of natural history specimens and art objects displayed in both the museum’s rooms and Villa Sauber’s gardens, this exhibition takes visitors on an astonishing journey between science and art.
Informations
Address: 56 boulevard du Jardin Exotique, 17 avenue Princesse Grace, 98000 Monaco