If you find yourself in Italy this winter, and you’d like to see some great art beyond the usual museums and the very streets of all the beautiful Italian towns, this round-up is for you. Here, we’ve tried to summarize the very best art exhibitions in Italy on view in the coming few months – from paintings and photographs to fashion and monumental sculptures (some of which you can even touch!).
We hope you enjoy it!
Helen Frankenthaler at Palazzo Strozzi Florence
When we think about abstract art, we often think of male artists first: Rothko, Pollock, Motherwell. But in recent years, the art world has been doing a great job at highlighting the contributions of the numerous female artists to the field – one of them being the inimitable Helen Frankenthaler.
At Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi, the aforementioned male artists’ works get juxtaposed with those of Frankenthaler, in the most extensive retrospective ever held in Italy dedicated to the painter. Renowned for her soak-stain technique, she applied diluted paint to unprepared canvas, making her paintings look like watercolors on a larger scale. Frankenthaler’s breakaways from traditional art forms and her inclination towards the improvised truly make her stand out in the vast world of abstraction.
“Painting Without Rules” is open until January 26th, 2025. Buy your ticket online.
The exhibition is also part of the Equinozio d’autunno 2024 project, a calendar of contemporary art events in Tuscany from 22 September to 6 October 2024, coordinated by the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci.
Louis Fratino at Centro Pecci Prato
Speaking of Centro Pecci, a short bus drive from Florence is the first solo institutional exhibition dedicated to the American artist Louis Fratino. Labeled as one of the most promising painters of his generation, Fraction creates intimate portraits, touching on humanity and often on topics such as sexuality and queer desire.
Through sculptures, over 30 paintings and more than 20 drawings and lithographs, Fratino explores the notion of “satura”, meaning “saturated” in Italian and referring to a platter filled with fruits and intended for the Gods in Latin. The works draw inspiration from 20th century Italian artists such as Mario Mafai or Carlo Carrà, as well as the Italian landscapes.
Fratino’s paintings were also part of Adriano Pedrosa’s “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere”, the 60th International Art Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia.
“Louis Fratino. Satura” is open until February 2nd, 2025. The exhibition contains sexually explicit images, viewing is recommended for an adult audience.
Marina Apollonio at Guggenheim Venice
Moving over to Venice, where the Biennale Arte just closed – but there’s still plenty to see. One such example is the “Marina Apollonio: Beyond the Circle” exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The largest museum retrospective organized in Italy dedicated to the artist, the show offers a feast for the eyes and a celebration of Optical and Kinetic art.
Apollonio’s paintings, sculptures and drawings are described as “vigorous visual investigations”, exploring the static and the moving, color and space, contrasts and perceptions. The show also speaks of Peggy Guggenheim’s own support of the artist, in particular the “Relief no. 505” (ca. 1968), which the heiress commissioned from Apollonio after seeing her solo exhibition at the Galleria Barozzi in Venice.
Visit the exhibition until March 3rd, 2025. You can buy your ticket online.
Memorabile. Ipermoda at MAXXI Rome
If you’re a fan of fashion, this one is for you. But even if you’re not, Rome’s MAXXI museum will show you clothes, accessories and images of fashion between 2015 and today with a special focus worth your attention – the memorable, “hyper” fashion.
In an attempt to be memorable, fashion has been using different methods: innovative design practices obviously, but also increasingly sophisticated technologies, different creative techniques and visual languages. It has questioned the role of a designer, a stylist, a model, a creative director. It has offered utopian visions, raised questions, and sparked controversy and conversation alike.
The exhibition is on view until March 23rd, 2025. Tickets available online.
Monumental at Cardi Gallery Milan
We don’t often feature art galleries in our exhibition round-ups, but every now and again, a show worth talking about comes around. “Monumental”, hosted by Milan’s Cardi Gallery, offers a group show centering around masterpieces on a big scale. Featuring fairly simple, yet grandiose works by the likes of Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz and Giuseppe Penone, the show the gallery’s two floors. Standing next to some of these artworks, we can guarantee you will feel small.
“Monumental” is on display until December 21st, 2024. Entry is free.
Three Exhibitions at Palazzo Reale Milano
Staying in Milan, the Palazzo Reale, as always, offers multiple treats at the same time.
Starting with the biggest exhibition at the moment, “Picasso the foreigner” focuses on the Spanish artist through some 90 artworks. These documents, photographs, letters and videos talk of obstacles that Picasso had to face when he first arrived in Paris in 1900, without speaking a word of French.
This show is on view until February 2nd, 2025.
Then, we have some 100 masterpieces by Edvard Munch, which Palazzo Reale brought back to Milan after four decades, thanks to the MUNCH Museum in Oslo. On the 80th anniversary of the artist’s death, the visitors can explore Munch’s trademark views of everlasting existential significance and challenged expressions of art, through paintings, drawings and prints.
See “Munch. The internal Scream” until January 26th, 2025.
Lastly, the “Ugo Mulas. The Photographic Operation” exhibition. Probably the least famous authors of the three listed here, Ugo Mulas is nevertheless an important figure in the Italian history of art, and particularly photography. Over 250 vintage shots, documents, books and films depict key figures of our time: artists, intellectuals, architects, personalities from the world of culture and entertainment. From cities to nudes and images of jewelry, this show is a true joy.
You can visit it until February 2nd, 2025.
Buy your ticket online.
Jean Tinguely at Pirelli HangarBicocca Milan
In 2025, the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely would have celebrated his 100th birthday. To mark this occasion, a wide range of exhibitions, events and activities will honor his work internationally. At Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, more than forty works from the 1950s to the 1990s encompass the artist’s most comprehensive retrospective held in Italy since the artist’s death in 1991.
Revolutionizing the concept of the artwork itself, Tinguely’s kinetic art explores “the machine, its function and movement, its noises and sounds, and its inherent poetry”. And inside the industrial building housing the exhibition space, these works appear even more “mechanical” and at home.
For those who would like to see some of these works in action, at Pirelli HangarBicocca’s Bookshop, it is possible to purchase a token at the cost of 5 euro that will allow visitors to activate the work “Méta-Matic No. 10” (1959, replica 2024) and realize a drawing on stamped paper. A museum mediator activates the “Rotozaza No. 2” four times a week, while the visitors can operate “Maschinenbar” (1960-85) themselves.
Take the opportunity to do so yourself until February 2nd, 2025. Entry to the museum is free but booking is recommended.
Tina Modotti at Camera Turin
Portraits of everyday life. Images depicting injustice, hard labor, political activism, poverty, and the contradictions of progress and the transition to modernity. These are the things that define the defining photography of Tina Modotti. As one of the most influential photographers of the last century, during her short but very fruitful careers Modotti has captured our world in striking ways. Some 300 examples of her work are on display at Turin’s Camera, and it offers unpublished materials, portraits of the artists, as well as photographs dating back to the first and only exhibition that Tina Modotti made in 1929.
While at Camera, we also recommend Mimmo Jodice’s “Oasi”.
Visit “Tina Modotti. Works” until February 2nd, 2025. Buy your ticket online.
