A new exhibition at Paris’s Musée de Minéralogie offers an unusual — and surprisingly thoughtful — intersection of contemporary street art and historic mineral collections.
In a recent feature for the online magazine Enlarge Your Paris, journalist Pauline de Quatrebarbes takes us inside the exhibition, Codex On the Rocks, explaining how street artist Codex Urbanus has introduced his illustrated creatures into one of France’s most important mineralogy museums, housed within Mines Paris – PSL.
[What follows is the background behind the project, as reported by Quatrebarbes. – gr]
The Codex On the Rocks exhibition is presented under the direction of Dr. Éloïse Gaillou, Director and Curator of the Musée de Minéralogie at Mines Paris – PSL. Trained as a geologist and petrologist, with a PhD in materials science, Gaillou brings both scientific depth and curatorial intent to the project, framing Codex on the Rocks as a deliberate dialogue between the science of mineralogy and contemporary urban art.
Rather than large murals or exterior interventions, Codex Urbanus works small and close. Dozens of his illustrated creatures are placed directly within the museum’s galleries, appearing among crystallographic models, meteorites, kimberlites, azurites, pyrites — yes, lots of “-ites.”
As noted in the Enlarge Your Paris article, many of these figures hold cocktail glasses — a neat double entendre — with some creatures quite literally drawn “on the rocks” inside the display cases. Crystal forms stand in for ice; diamonds appear as garnish. The drawings are executed freehand, without preliminary sketches, a practice Codex has refined through hundreds of street drawings over more than a decade.
Codex Urbanus has also shared the project through his own social media, noting that Codex on the Rocks marks his first exhibition inside the Mineralogy Museum. He highlights the playful way his creatures interact with crystalline structures, aquatic chimeras, and mythical minerals embedded throughout the historic collection.
“Codex on the Rocks” is on view January 29–June 27, 2026, at the Musée de Minéralogie, École des Mines de Paris, 60 Boulevard Saint-Michel, Paris 6ᵉ.
Why This Matters
For gem and mineral professionals, Codex on the Rocks is about street art, access, and visibility. Mineral collections, no matter how important scientifically, can be a difficult draw for the casual visitor. This exhibition uses contemporary urban art — playful, informal, and deliberately irreverent, complete with a glass of whisky on the rocks (crystal garnish included) — as a way to lower that barrier.
The minerals themselves do not change. What changes is the invitation. Visitors come for the unexpected sight of illustrated creatures and cocktail references inside a historic museum, and in doing so, they encounter one of France’s most significant mineral collections almost by accident.
Seen this way, the exhibition functions as a form of cultural outreach — a reminder that attracting attention and sparking curiosity is often the first step towards participation. For museums charged with preserving and presenting scientific collections, striking that balance between seriousness and fun is increasingly part of the job.
Well done, Éloïse.
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