MOSCOW.- The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Embassy of Monaco in Russia present the exhibition Monaco. Artist’s Stories dwelling on the modern and contemporary art of the principality. the project at the MMOMA is a story of friendship between two artists, Gérard Pettiti and Claude Rosticher, whose selection of art introduce the public to the Monegasque unique artistic tradition.

The works of two artists differ both in their pictorial style and the themes they choose to address. With all that, they are unanimous in connecting their art with different aspects of the natural world. Still, whereas Pettiti gravitates towards the implication with 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, plants, but 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 has been going on and on without intermission since he founded a conceptual art group the Sign (1968–1974) and up till now.

The display features not only works by Péttiti and Rosticher. Il 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, those masters of the 20th century who took part in the making of the European Modernism and Postmodernism. Photo and video documentation of these artists’ heritage, being part of the display, 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 keeps its importance to the present day.