MO.CO.
Located in the heart of the city, this former private mansion from the early 19th century has been transformed into an art center dedicated to international exhibitions. It is the main entity of Montpellier Contemporain, an artistic ecosystem hat goes from arts training to collection, production, exhibition and mediation, which encompasses a fine arts school and two contemporary art centres.
Located in the heart of the city, this former private mansion from the early 19th century has been transformed into an art center dedicated to international exhibitions. It is the main entity of Montpellier Contemporain, an artistic ecosystem hat goes from arts training to collection, production, exhibition and mediation, which encompasses a fine arts school and two contemporary art centres.
Programme
J'accueille avec plaisir tout ce qui viendra ensuite
Venue: Faculté de Médecine, 2, rue de l'École de Médecine, Montpellier .
Tuesday to Friday, 1pm-6pm. Free admission .
Exhibition of MO.CO. graduates. Esba 2025 with Laure Brioude, Paloma Calandra, Léa Cortiglia, Colombe Delacoste, Elisa Fabre, Tamara Gavrilov, Soline Le Courbe, Chloé Lefevre, Lilou Marquez, Nicolas Martin, Nuria Mokhtar, Arthur Monteillet, Jongeun Park, Léo Rump, Melika Sadeghzadeh, Hélène Sagnier, Sophia Schotel, Lou Semete, Dachi Siboshvili, Sarah Vozlinsky.
Guest curator: Sophie Lapalu
Sur un os, Françoise Pétrovitch
Venue: MO.CO.
A major monographic exhibition dedicated to Françoise Pétrovitch, one of the most influential and popular artists on the contemporary French scene. Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, it covers all the media and themes of her work, including her relationship with staging, and brings together nearly 130 works created between 1994 and 2025.
Born in Chambéry in 1964, Françoise Pétrovitch has been developing a prolific body of work since the 1990s, using a wide range of media and techniques, including ceramics, bronze, video, painting, washes and drawing. In constant dialogue with the artists who preceded her, she takes traditional subjects from art history - portraits, landscapes and still lifes - and bends them to create a new reading of the world, characterised by the absence of hierarchy. The ambivalent worlds she creates, populated by a galaxy of living creatures, from animals to plants to the immense diversity of human beings, play with paradoxical atmospheres that oscillate between the visible and the invisible, between light and darkness, between the unaltered and the hybrid. This porosity of boundaries allows François Pétrovitch to place questions of the intimate, the fragment, the double, disappearance, loneliness, transition and cruelty at the heart of his work.
La cinquième essence, Jean-Marie Appriou
Venue: MO.CO. Panacée
Jean-Marie Appriou is an alchemist in the medieval sense of the word: he gives form to the formless and explores materiality by questioning man's relationship with the cosmos. He engraves his human, animal or plant figures on paper, moulds clay to shape his works, casts aluminium and bronze to fill the world with wonder, whispers in the breath of glass and fuses lava stones from volcanoes.
His universe, steeped in legend, ranges from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. His works are poetic fictions populated by hybrid creatures, 'exonauts', characters inspired by painting or literature, and invasive plants. The eye is drawn from the primordial soup to the stars. In the works in the exhibition, conceived as a journey, it crosses worlds and mixes elements through materials.
Access
MO.CO
13, rue de la République, 34000 Montpellier
Open from Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm (June - September) and 11am to 6pm (October - May)
MO.CO. Panacée
14, rue de l’École de Pharmacie, 34000 Montpellier
Open from Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm (June - September) and 11am to 6pm (October - May)
+33 (0)4 99 58 28 00
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PLACES TO DISCOVER
• Le Jardin des Plantes
• Musée et Conservatoire d’Anatomie
• La Halle Tropisme : an associative place where the Montpellier's culture and party combine. Bar and restaurant.
• FRAC Occitanie Montpellier
• Musée Fabre
• Pavillon Populaire
• Espace Saint-Ravy
• Mécènes du sud Montpellier-Sète
• Aperto
• Iconoscope
• AL/MA gallery
• La Jetée, art gallery and studio
• CRAC Occitanie (Sète)
• Musée International des Arts Modestes (Sète)
AT THE MO.CO
• MO.CO. Panacée : patio with a garden designed by Coloco.
• MO.CO. : site-specific artworks to discover, the garden designed by Bertrand Lavier, Jardin des sept continents (2019) and Les arrosoirs arrosés (2019) and Loris Gréaud’s artwork, Idle Mode (2019) in the bar-restaurant.
• MO.CO. Esba : in the schoolyards: artworks by Fabrice Hyber, Prééau (2019) and Bob & Roberta Smith, this is a freedom of Expression Centre (2019).
PLACES TO STAY
• Le Mas de la Feuillade : guest houses in the heart of a classified park.
• La Merci : guest houses with an indoor garden, very good value for money.
• Hôtel du Palais : in the heart of the district l’Écusson since 1870, very close to the famous Place de la Canourgue.
• Hôtel Oceania Le Métropole : just a step from the MO.CO, an iconic place built in 1898 in the style of the French Riviera’s prestigious palaces.
PLACES TO EAT
• Le Pastis : a first Michelin star in 2021. Come and enjoy the surprise menus of Daniel Lutrand and Jean-Philippe Vivant.
• Leclere : Guillaume Leclere enhances the products, the season, the nature. A must-go.
• Faune : a creative and modern Provençal bistronomy with foreign influences.
• Mikado : japanese Chef Takétomo Lulu Sumi (ex-Ito Chan) cooks “the best ramen in France” according to Le Fooding.
• Rosemarie : mediterranean cuisine and cocktail bar with a big terrace, in the historic centre.
• Ikonka : salads, pies, super fresh and non-classical unique dish. A wide variety of pastries.
• Zaatar : the best falafel in the region!
• Äponem, l’auberge du presbytère : a gastronomic journey inspired by the Hérault’s wilderness, signed by Chef Amélie Darvas and sommelier Gaby Benicio. (Vailhan)
HAVE A DRINK
• Café de la Panacée : restaurant for lunchtime, you can come have a drink all day long and enjoy tapas in the evening in the pleasant and vast courtyard.
• Panka : come and enjoy regional products, natural wines and seafood tapas.
• Les Garçons : a lively bar-tapas-wine cellar downtown.
• Le Parfum : you will find the best cocktails in the city.
• Le Poisson Rouge : a former house of oyster farmers with a breathtaking view, offering a simple and tasty cuisine inspired by the sea. (Frontignan)
• La plage Bonaventure (Palavas-les-Flots)
