Artist JR plants a giant tree in Carré Sainte-Anne in Montpellier

The bell tower, in particular, was showing signs of weakness. Montpellier's Carré Sainte-Anne, an exhibition space located in a deconsecrated church, underwent eight years of work to restore its former glory. It reopened at the end of May. A month later, it welcomed a tree by the acclaimed artist JR , who abandoned his camera to grow this monumental installation. The main work of a solo exhibition entitled Adventice.

Paper hands hang from the branches. " The tree is made of all the hands you leave here, like a collective memory in perpetual evolution ," JR assured visitors. Montpellier residents were invited to leave their handprints before the exhibition began. Through this project, the municipal magazine En Commun reports , the artist aims to celebrate diversity in turn. "The word 'adventice' means something that comes from outside. It's a herb, a seed, an outstretched hand. It's also a powerful idea for our time: what comes from elsewhere can enrich a soil, a culture, a city. "

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JR claims to have been inspired by the Montpellier river. "In the Middle Ages, on the banks of the Lez, washed wool imported from Spain or Africa carried distant seeds. These plants grew here, discreet but very real. They changed the landscape forever."

This committed artist (he prefers the term "engaging") found success in 2004 with his Portraits of a Generation , photographs of young people from the Parisian suburbs. Since then, his large-format installations, halfway between photographs and collages, have toured the world. He was invited to redecorate, temporarily, the Pont-Neuf and the Louvre Pyramid, before forays into other areas. In 2024, for example, he designed one of the suites of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express luxury train.

The Carré Sainte-Anne, which before its closure hosted works by Gérard Garouste and Hervé Di Rosa, has undergone a facelift at a cost of five million euros, according to the municipality. The structural work was followed by the restoration of the original decorations of this late 19th-century church, located in the historic Écusson district. JR's tree and its symbolic ramifications will be on display until December.