Exhibition at La Malmaison CAC
"I was happy to attend the opening of the "Stardust" exhibition by sculptor Jean-Michel Othoniel in La Malmaison contemporary art centre in Cannes on May 17, 2025. I was delighted to attend at the kind invitation of the Perrotin Gallery." - Natalia Shpytkovska. The event took place during the first week of the Cannes Film Festival.
The artist offered a fascinating immersion into his world where glass and light intertwine to create a unique immersive sensory experience. These works invite reverie and thus echo the inexhaustible light of the Mediterranean sun, the glitter of the Cannes International Film Festival, and the azure blue of the Cannes sea and sky. Among the 91 pieces presented, 53 were specifically designed for Malmaison, in keeping with its exceptional environment and history.
Employing materials such as glass, wax, and sulphur, Jean-Michel Othoniel explores ideas of material transformation. “I want to seduce you with their beauty, then lead you to other themes,” he has explained of his work.
Othoniel’s enchanting aesthetics revolves around the notion of emotional geometry. Through the repetition of modular elements such as bricks or his signature beads, he creates exquisite jewellery-like sculptures whose relationship to the human scale ranges from intimacy to monumentality. His predilection for materials with reversible and often reflective properties, particularly blown glass, which has been the hallmark of his practice since the early 1990s, relates to the deeply equivocal nature of his art.
The artist currently lives and works in Paris, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, among others.
The opening event was attended by art connoisseurs, with David Lisnard, the Mayor of Cannes, and Jean-Michel Arnaud, the Culture Councillor, and Hanna Baudet, the Director of the Cannes Contemporary Art Centre, among them.
The exhibition will run at La Malmaison until January 4, 2026.
47 Boulevard de la Croisette
Cannes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, 06400, France