Share  
Buy tickets  

Exhibition | STORIES OF STONES

200 masterpieces by Guido Reni, Damien Hirst, as well as Rodin and Picasso

Exhibition from 13 October 2023 to 14 January 2024
Curators: Jean de Loisy & Sam Stourdzé

Companions of our daydreams, stones, older than life, have exerted on humans a fascination of which each of us shares the experience: a collection, a launch, an admiring contemplation. Poets and artists of all periods of art have testified to the profound inflections that these silent presences have had on their creations.

Follow the visit with explanations by Jean de Loisy, co-curator of the exhibition:

The great surrealist writer Roger Caillois, some remarkable examples from whose collection of minerals constitute the prologue of this exhibition, was able to describe this insistent relationship: ‘more than once, I have thought that it was appropriate to look at stones as a kind of poem.’ Accompanied by the writer’s prose, the exhibition is the novel of this continuous frequentation that reveals how these minerals occupy a decisive position between the caprice of nature and the work of art.

The Stories of stones exhibition presented at the Villa Medici has benefited from loans from more than 70 institutions and brings together nearly 200 works, from the oldest terrestrial mineral dating back 4.4 billion years to the latest mineral created, Sentimentite, by the contemporary artist Agnieszka Kurant. The route unfolds in ten exhibition rooms and continues in the ancient reservoir of the Villa Medici, in the apartments of Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici and in the Balthus workshop.

The suggestions that stones made to artists of all ages make it possible to measure how much our thought, our myths, our protests, and even sometimes our worries, have benefited from their proximity. There, dialogue gathered, beyond the contingencies of history, stones of the roadside and coveted crystals, votive stones, simple ruins or weapons of the weak to defend themselves from the powerful, objects of scientific study and romantic contemplation. And among humanity, from megalithic societies to the great names of modernity, Auguste Rodin or Giuseppe Penone, Charlotte Perriand or Antonio Tempesta, Tatiana Trouvé or the Facteur Cheval; all inspired by their sedimented mysteries, are the heralds of this vast narrative.

TEST
Auguste Rodin, La Pensée, 1895
Wenzel Hablik, Der Weg des Genius, 1918
Domenico Beccafumi, San Galgano, c.1520
Fernand Léger, Silex blanc sur fond jaune, 1932
Antonio Tempesta, La Prise de Jérusalem, 1555-1630

Jean de Loisy & Sam Stourdzé, curators of the Stories of stones exhibition

Jean de Loisy is an art historian and independent curator. He has, among others, been Inspector for Creation at the Ministry of Culture and curator at the Fondation Cartier and at the Centre Georges Pompidou. He has directed and co-directed various art venues in France, including the Palais de Tokyo from 2011 to 2017 and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 2018 to 2022. From 2011 to 2022, he was a producer at France Culture of the programmes Les Regardeurs then L’Art est la matière

Sam Stourdzé is an exhibition curator and a specialist in the contemporary image and the relationship between art, photography and film.

A former Fellow of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici (2007, Film Department), he has been its Director since 2020.

He was previously Director of the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne, Switzerland (2010 – 2014), and of the Rencontres d’Arles (2014 – 2020).

→ Press release on the Stories of stones exhibition

Tours of the Stories of stones exhibition

SELF-GUIDED VISIT
Date: from October 13 to January 14
Schedule: every day from 10am to 7pm, except Tuesday (closed)
Price: 10€ / 8€ / 2€
Booking

GUIDED TOURS
Date: from October 21 to January 14
Schedule: every Saturday at 4:00 PM and every Sunday at 12:00 PM
Price: 14€ / 11€ / 5€
Language: Italian
Booking

FAMILY VISITS
Date: from October 22 to January 14
Schedule:
– In Italian: every Sunday at 3:00 PM
– In French: 5 and 11 November; 17, 24 and 31 December at 3:00 PM
Price: 7 €
Family booking

Sponsor

With the support of
GROUPAMA ASSICURAZIONI
AIR FRANCE
SOFITEL
CULINARIES
CLUB CRIOLLO
VELO PASTICCERIA

Institutional partner of the exhibition
MUSÉUM NATIONAL D’HISTOIRE NATURELLE

Media partner
INSIDE ART

Photo credits:
Cover image: Agate called Le petit fantôme © MNHN-François Farges
Images of the exhibition: © Daniele Molajoli
. Auguste Rodin, La Pensée, 1895, Musée d’Orsay (Paris)
. Wenzel Hablik, Der Weg des Genius, 1918, Wenzel-Hablik-Museum (Itzehoe)
. Domenico Beccafumi, San Galgano, c.1520, Pinacoteca nazionale di Siena
. Fernand Léger, Silex blanc sur fond jaune, 1932, Centre Pompidou (Paris)
. Antonio Tempesta, La Prise de Jérusalem, 1555-1630, Galleria Borghese (Roma)

Jean de Loisy © Adrien Thibault
Sam Stourdzé © Daniele Molajoli