« CACTUS » Exhibition
Today, the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco dedicates an exhibition to them, initiated in 2024 by the YVES SAINT LAURENT Museum in Marrakech, exploring their botanical and artistic dimensions.
Native to the Earth’s “torrid zone” and symbols of arid landscapes, cacti offer a privileged subject for studying how lush tropical flora progressively spread into the West through scientific expeditions, explorations, and the horticultural boom of the 19th century. With their spectacular forms, these plants challenged conventional ideas of vegetation. Quickly illustrated in botanical publications, they entered the collections of prestigious gardens. Though seemingly easy to grow, they require expertise and have become collector’s items, inspiring remarkable gardens from California to the Canary Islands, and along the Riviera. The exhibition pays special attention to this region through vintage and contemporary photographs, archival materials, and drawings.
The unique aesthetic of cacti captivated many artists, especially in the early 20th century and during the interwar years. Their unusual, often suggestive shapes made them transgressive and inspiring figures for architects, designers, photographers, artists, fashion creators and filmmakers, who drew upon their striking graphic qualities. Few plant families have inspired as many artistic interpretations. The exhibition presents a wide array, from an Eisenstein film to a Gufram coat rack, and a digital drawing by David Hockney on iPad.
Shifting between scientific rigor and dreamlike — sometimes strange or even unsettling — artifice, the exhibition extends beyond the museum’s walls into the gardens of the Villa Sauber, transformed into a spectacular cactus garden in collaboration with the Jardin Exotique de Monaco.
