URBAN GUIDE

Art and sunshine together make the Côte d’Azur even lovelier! An overview of the must summer exhibitions.

MAMAC
« Cosmogonies,au gré des éléments »
Throughout the summer the MAMAC keeps an eye on the
sky as it shines "a poetic and historic light on environmental and ecological practices" in art. Its standard bearer is Yves Klein (1928-1962), around whom the exhibition has been conceived. After appropriating the infinite blue of sea and sky in his patented International Klein Blue (IKB), two years before his death the Nice artist set out to capture "moment-states of nature". His Cosmogonies are displayed alongside other "co-creation with nature" experiments by some 50 artists, like Klein "gatherers of wind, light and pollen".
Jusqu’au 16 septembre
Nice, Place Yves Klein

Centre d’art La Malmaison
Max Ernst, « L’imagination en jeu »
At the forefront of the Dada and Surrealist movements, Max Ernest (1891-1976) was one of the 20th century’s most inventive artists; this experimental genius's techniques of collage, frottage and grattage have inspired many since. The oil paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints brought together for the first time in the "Imagination In Play" exhibition tell us about Ernst’s relationship with the South and notably his work with Pierre Chave, one of his lithographers from 1966.
Du 13 juilet au 28 octobre
Cannes, 47 La Croisette

1^re Biennale internationale de Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Saint-Paul-de-Vence in its entirety – private galleries, public spaces, ramparts, streets,
squares – hosts this first Contemporary Art Biennial presided by Olivier Kaeppelin, ex-director of Fondation Maeght. The artworks along the trail are by 13 world-class artists, including Vincent Barré, Jan Fabre, Tania Mouraud, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Vladimir Skoda and Agnès Thurnauer, and all pay tribute to the "media-terra", the sea between two lands.
Jusqu’au 31 août
Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Villa Paloma
Tom Wesselmann, « La Promesse du Bonheur »
He is one of the most famous artists of the Pop Art movement and yet his work remains little known. From figurative to abstract art, and collage to assemblage, Wesselmann created still lifes, landscapes and, almost obsessively, nudes, upending the tradition of the great masters while making humorous references to them. Bringing together 27 paintings, drawings and sculptures made between the 1960s and 1980s, the exhibition sources its title from Stendhal’s famous statement: “Beauty is only the promise of happiness”.
Jusqu’au 6 janvier 2018
Monaco, 56 boulevard du Jardin Exotique

Fondation Maeght
Jan Fabre, « Ma nation : l’imagination »
The "bespoke" exhibition "My Nation: The Imagination" that Jan Fabre has conceived for Fondation Maeght focuses on thought, the imaginary, the body, and scientific discovery, all recurrent themes in the polymorphous oeuvre of this immense and unclassifiable Belgian artist. Some of the finest of these works displayed throughout the entire premises are the immensely delicate collage-drawings and sublime translucent marbles created specially for the exhibition.
Jusqu’au 11 novembre
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 623 chemin des Garcettes

Musée Fernand Léger
« Vis-à-vis. Fernand Léger et ses ami.e.s »
The links between Fernand Léger (1881-1955) and the artists of his day were regular, fertile and especially inspiring. Very much in tune with his era and its innovations both artistic and technical, Léger was never one to hold fast to a dogmatic position, his interactions with friends both male and female constantly nourishing his thought processes and influencing his painterly approach. Conversely, his work inspired a whole generation of avant-garde European artists such as Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Fautrier, Kandinsky and Lichtenstein, to name but them.
Jusqu’au 17 septembre
Biot, Chemin du Val de Pôme

Villa Arson, La Station,
Espace à Vendre « We Are The Painters »
The unclassifiable duo formed in 2004 by Nicolas Beaumelle and Aurélien Porte is exhibiting this summer in three of the Nice art scene's leading venues, at Villa Arson (where the artists had a residence), La Station and the Espace à Vendre gallery. We Are The Painters presents a retrospective of an oeuvre indeed centred on painting as their "stage name" indicates, but extremely diverse in its forms: canvases, in situ installations, films, drawings and more.
Jusqu’au 14 octobre 
Nice, Villa Arson, 20 avenue Stephen Liégeard
Jusqu’au 29 septembre
Nice, Espace à Vendre, 10 rue Assalitet à La Station, 89 route de Turin

Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre
Franco Fontana, « Horizons »
Segments, horizontal and vertical lines, curves, angles, cut-outs of light and shade, saturated colours, zero artifice – the landscapes by photographer Franco Fontana (born Modena, 1933) play incessantly with the confines of abstraction. "Creativity doesn't mean photographing what is but what we imagine might be," explains the artist whose book Skyline, published in 1978, helped open the way to a new Italian photography.
Jusqu’au 30 septembre
Nice, 1 place Pierre Gautier

Musée Bonnard
« Inspirantes, inspiratrices : passions croisées »
Models, muses, companions, confidantes and much more... whether in the shadows or the limelight, artists' wives and partners aren't just good to do the cooking! The exhibition "Inspiring, Inspirational" in the museum devoted to Pierre Bonnard – who produced at least 146 paintings and 717 drawings modelled by his wife – highlights the somewhat mysterious link between woman and creator by means of 40-odd artworks by Toulouse-Lautrec, Vuillard, Renoir, Chagall, Bonnard, Matisse, Giacometti and others.
Jusqu’au 4 novembre
Le Cannet, 16 bd Sadi Carnot

Musée Jean-Honoré Fragonard
« Parfums d’interdit »
The hidden sensuality in 18th-century painting is the linchpin of the "Forbidden Fruits" exhibition at Fragonard's Grasse museum, subtly subtitled "audacity under the brush". Juggling the lure of desire and the fear of censorship, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Marguerite Gérard, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Louis-Roland Trinquesse and numerous others regularly performed balancing acts in order to suggest carnal intrigue. A further high point is the presentation of Fragonard's painting Beloved Bird, rediscovered recently by the historian Carole Blumenfeld.
Jusqu’au 23 septembre
Grasse, Hôtel de Villeneuve, 14 rue Jean Ossola

Galerie des Ponchettes
Michel Blazy, « Timeline »
The MAMAC's "Outside the Walls" cycle hosts Michel Blazy, a familiar name on the national and international art circuit, at Galerie des Ponchettes. Born in Monaco in 1966, Blazy works with living material – plants mainly but also insects, moulds and bacteria – on the themes of growth and degeneration. Echoing the Cosmogonies exhibition, he has created an evolving garden on the scale of the venue, spectacular, philosophical and unforgettable.
Jusqu’au 4 novembre
Nice, 77 quai des États-Unis