From Leonardo da Vinci to Maria Lai, Giorgio Vasari to Pontormo: here are all the Uffizi exhibitions in 2018

The Uffizi Galleries today released the list of exhibitions they will host throughout 2018, in addition to those already open on Roberto Capucci, Carlo Levi, the 18th century, and Spain and Italy in dialogue. There will be space for Elisabetta Sirani and Maria Lai, two great artists who will be the protagonists of the week of March 8, and again Pontormo’sHalberdier will return to Florence from Los Angeles, there will be an exhibition on Islam in Medici collecting, we will see Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester, a review on the relationship between Giorgio Vasari and artists from Romagna, a monographic exhibition on Pio Fedi, and an exhibition of tapestries. Below is the complete list:

Homage to Carlo Levi: Narcissus and Three Self-Portraits
curated by Claudio di Benedetto
Pitti Palace, Gallery of Modern Art
Jan. 27-April 21, 2018
The installation in homage to Carlo Levi, on March 8, 2018 will be enriched with two additional works by the artist on the occasion of the naming of the two squares adjacent to Piazza Pitti, after Carlo Levi and Anna Maria Ichino. Both the exhibition and the dedication recall the role of Levi and Ichino in the anti-fascist struggle, but also the evocative value of a place like Pitti Square and the house in that square that was a refuge for many anti-fascists. It was in Piazza Pitti that Carlo Levi wrote ’Christ Stopped at Eboli’ and that Anna Maria Ichino was at the writer’s side typing the manuscript day after day.

The Eighteenth Century. A selection
curated by Alessandra Griffo
Pitti Palace, Sala delle Nicchie
Feb. 7-April 15, 2018
In tribute to the 250th anniversary of Canaletto ’s death, his two celebrated Venetian views owned by the Uffizi return to view after a protracted absence and, flanked by glimpses of Florence, Rome and Naples, feed the inexhaustible myth of the Italian cities favored by early Grand Tour travelers. Juxtaposing eighteenth-century works from the storerooms and the foreigners’ rooms of the Gallery of Statues and Paintings, soon to be transformed, the temporary exhibition in the Pitti Palace also enucleates internationally renowned masterpieces such as Goya’s portrait of the Countess of Chinchón, dwells on the taste for the exotic at court and casts a glance at the more bourgeois and intimate theme of childhood and play.

Spain and Italy in Dialogue. Comparing Cultures in Sixteenth-Century Europe.
Edited by Marzia Faietti, Corinna T. Gallori, Tommaso Mozzati
Uffizi, Aula Magliabechiana
Feb. 27-May 27, 2018
This is the most extensive survey so far dedicated to the rich collection of Spanish drawings held at the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe of the Uffizi Galleries, and focuses on the dialogue between the two figurative traditions (Italian and Iberian), so as to highlight their contacts and relationships in the period of full maturation of the Modern Epoch, favored since the sixteenth century also by the political situation and trade relations. The exhibition presents sheets of extraordinary quality, and offers a new interpretation for artists such as Alonso Berruguete, Francisco Pacheco, Patricio and Eugenio Cajés, Vicente Carducho, Romolo Cincinnato and Pompeo Leoni, to name but a few. In order to fully place the drawings in their context of origin, the itinerary also includes artifacts of a different nature, including sculptures, paintings, examples of goldsmithing and applied arts, with the intention of establishing comparisons inspired by a multidisciplinary criterion.

Painting and drawing “as a grand master”
The talent of Elisabetta Sirani (Bologna, 1638-1665)
Curated by Roberta Aliventi and Laura Da Rin Bettina
Uffizi, Sala Edoardo Detti and Sala del Camino
March 6-June 10, 2018
Elisabetta Sirani, remembered by Carlo Cesare Malvasia a few years after her untimely death for the “gracefulness without striving, and grace without affectation” of her creations, was also famous among her contemporaries for her particular loveliness that seemed to be a metaphor for the beauty of her art. The Bolognese painter’s artistic personality is explored through a reasoned selection of 35 works from public and private Italian collections, plus Self-Portrait as Allegory of Painting from the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Maria Lai
The Thread and the Infinite
curated by Elena Pontiggia
Pitti Palace, Andito degli Angiolini
March 8-June 3, 2018
Through the theme of thread, Maria Lai combines the tradition of Sardinian civilization with the languages of contemporary art. In 1967 the artist made Oggetto-paesaggio, a sculpture-installation that takes up the structure of a loom, but also recalls Pascali and conceptual art, from Nouveau Réalisme toArte Povera. In the early 1970s he composed Stitched Canvases, where he does not paint but sews. He still recalls Sardinian craftsmanship, but also Burri, Scarpitta, Fontana, Manzoni, who instead of painting on the canvas, intervene directly and shape it. Also in the 1970s he sews on fabric a writing composed of indecipherable signs and tangles, which he would later collect in Books, including Il mare ha bisogno di fichi, inspired by the Florence flood. Her Pages still contain the echoes of sheets mended at home, but they also reconnect with visual poetry and Artist’s Books. Maria Lai’s art, in short, is a back-and-forth journey between Sardinia and Europe, and the exhibition documents the outcomes, moving from Oggetto-paesaggio of 1967 and exploring Stitched Canvases, Writings, Geographies (visions of the infinity of the cosmos, stitched on canvas: “Art gave me the anxiety of the infinite,” Lai said) and Books.

The Halberdier Back in Florence
Miraculous Encounters: Pontormo from Drawing to Painting
curated by Bruce Edelstein and David Gasparotto
Pitti Palace, Sala delle Nicchie
May 8-July 29, 2018
The exhibition, created in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, is a valuable selection of works from Pontormo’s maturity, executed in the late 1620s. For the occasion, the Alabardiere now in the Getty Museum returns to Florence-after more than 20 years-that will be compared with both the preparatory drawing in the Uffizi and the recently discovered magnificent Portrait of Carlo Neroni from a private collection. The religious side of Pontormo’s production is represented by the splendid Visitation of Carmignano, also exhibited for the first time together with the related, beautiful black pencil study in the Uffizi, squared off for the carry-over to the panel.

Traveling in style: Driving cars, letting fashions guide you curated by Caterina Chiarelli, Simonella Condemi and Alessandra Griffo
Pitti Palace, Museum of Fashion and Costume
June 5 - December 2, 2018
Elegance and “signature” distinguish automobiles, “works of ’art in motion,” and traveling companions also for all those who are guided by the dictates of fashion even in dressing. The automobile after all is a status symbol like the dress, and good or bad, both are the creation of a designer/stylist. This is an original and multidisciplinary exhibition, in which historical photographs from the Locchi Archives, documenting the fascination with the automobile during the 20th century, will be commented on by clothes to be worn on the road, present in the Museo della Moda e del Costume collection: alternative clothing, that is, more practical and with more suitable colors and fabrics, for a world launched at speed, with style and elegance.

Islam e/a Florence
Collectibles from the Medici to the 19th century
curated by Giovanni Curatola
Uffizi, Aula Magliabechiana, and Museo Nazionale del Bargello
June 19-September 23, 2018
Between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, there are numerous testimonies of Islamic art collected in Florence: the main purpose of this exhibition is to explore the conspicuous exchange of works that took place between the capital of the Renaissance and the Eastern Islamic world, with particular reference to the Mediterranean basin. The strength of the exhibition review will be the variety and quality of the types and works on display: carpets, textiles, wooden, ceramic and glass materials, metals, ivories, semi-precious stones and manuscripts. Islamic artifacts from the grand ducal collections will be flanked by works of the highest caliber from Italian and foreign collections, as well as a section devoted to the influences of Eastern imports on Italian workshops and workshops. The exhibition’s itinerary will be divided into two venues: that of the Uffizi, with a predominantly historical focus on the 15th-17th centuries, and that of the Bargello attentive to the “revival” of Islamic art collecting at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, exemplified by important and emblematic antiquarian and collector figures-Bardini, Carrand, Franchetti and Stibbert

Fritz Koenig in Florence
Retrospective (1924 - 2017)
curated by Eike D. Schmidt Uffizi, Gallery of Statues and Paintings, and Boboli Gardens
June 21-October 7, 2018
Fritz König, one of the leading German sculptors of the 20th century, is best known for his large “Caryatid Sphere,” located between the twin towers in New York and miraculously surviving their collapse in the September 11, 2001 attack. Disappeared in February 2017 at the age of 93, the artist always avoided exhibitions, art fairs and the art market: therefore, the Florentine one is the first major retrospective to be dedicated to him, and it traces from the 1950s onward the main themes of his work, often inspired by Italian art and antiquity. Solitude, the ecstasy of the couple, the horse, the movements of the masses, and the Holocaust are central to König’s poetics. The exhibition includes small- and medium-format drawings, models, and sculptures (at the Uffizi), including models for monuments on the Mauthausen exterminations and others not made, and monumental bronze sculptures in the Boboli Gardens.

Riding the Weather. The Art of Riding from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Curated by Lorenza Camin and Fabrizio Paolucci
Limonaia Grande, Boboli Gardens
June 26-October 14, 2018
The exhibition aims to propose to the public’s interest the strong link that has existed since Prehistory between man and horse in different aspects: mythology, daily life, sport, military activity, funerary and ritual spheres. From the earliest representations on prehistoric cave walls to the use of the stirrup during the Middle Ages, the horse represents for man a friend, a sign of social prestige, and a symbol of political power. At the same time, the horse is used in warfare, as a means of transportation, and employed in religious events and competitive - sports performances. Myths related to the horse are numerous in all cultures and testify to the preferential relationship and attraction that man has always felt for this animal, a symbol of strength, elegance, power. The exhibition will illustrate this millennial relationship between man and animal through an articulate variety of objects, from major Italian and foreign archaeological museums and chronologically spanning the 10th century B.C. to the 15th century A.D. These are statues, urns, reliefs, vases, terracottas, and harnesses that will allow the visitor to retrace the evolution of the “technology” related to the use of the horse, which, with the centuries of the early Middle Ages, experienced a real revolution.

Leonardo da Vinci’s The Leicester Codex. The Water Microscope of Nature
Curated by Paolo Galluzzi
Uffizi, Aula Magliabechiana
October 29, 2018 - January 20, 2019
Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester comes to Florence as a premiere of absolute grandeur as part of the Leonardo celebrations that will take place worldwide in 2019 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of one of the iconic figures in human history. The pages of the Codex are displayed in the original, and made fully visible thanks to a completely innovative technology. The drawings and theories of Vinci’s genius are explored in a series of scientific studies that demonstrate their shocking relevance. The exhibition is organized by the Uffizi Galleries and the Museo Galileo, with the contribution of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.

Around the Rape of Polyxena. Pio Fedi classical sculptor in the years of Florence Capital
Curated by Simonella Condemi and Elena Marconi
Uffizi, Sala del Camino
November 25, 2018 - February 24, 2019
The new acquisition of a sketch for the monumental statue in the Loggia dei Lanzi is an opportunity to document the extensive research conducted by artists on classical texts even in the period of Firenze Capitale, and it also makes it possible to make known other works by Pio Fedi already preserved in the collections of the Uffizi Galleries.

Fragile treasures of the princes
The porcelain routes between Vienna and Florence
Curated by Rita Balleri, Andreina d’Agliano, Claudia Lehner-Jobst
Pitti Palace, Sala del Fiorino
November 13, 2018 - March 10, 2019
Celebrating the magnificence of porcelain during the Lorraine Grand Duchy, the rooms of the Reggia di Palazzo Pitti will once again shine in a constant dialogue between the arts. The decline of the Medici dynasty led to a new orientation of taste, which was adhered to by Marquis Carlo Ginori sent to Vienna to pay homage to Francis Stephen of Lorraine, the future emperor of Austria and successor to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Fascinated by the precious, snow-white porcelain worked in the Viennese factory started in 1718 by Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier, in 1737 the marquis founded his own factory on the outskirts of Florence. Thanks to important international loans and collaboration with the Liechtenstein Princely Collections (Liechtenstein Princely Collections) in Vaduz-Vienna, a partner in the exhibition, the works selected for theexhibition-porcelain, but also paintings, sculptures, hardstone commissions, waxes, ivories, crystals, tapestries and engravings-will reveal the attention to the exotic, the antiquarian passion and the naturalistic interest characteristic of the eighteenth-century international taste expressed by the Ginori and Vienna manufactories.

Giorgio Vasari and the Artists of Emilia and Romagna. A controversial relationship
Curated by Michele Grasso
Uffizi, Edoardo Detti Room
November 20, 2018-January 2019
The exhibition opens 450 years after the publication of Giorgio Vasari’s Lives published by Giunti precisely in 1568. Starting from a reading of Vasari’s text, the complex and controversial relationship that the artist from Arezzo intertwined with the artistic languages of the masters from Emilia and Romagna will be addressed. Alongside a wide selection of Vasari’s own graphic works, a number of precious drawings by Parmigianino, an artist who deeply influenced him, especially during his stay in Bologna in 1539, and who was the protagonist of one of his most significant Lives, will be exhibited. Vasari’s relations with the artists of Emilia and Romagna, especially those he met in Bologna, were, however, rather strained. They were divided by deep divergences in artistic ideals and practices. Among the authors represented in the exhibition, Prospero Fontana, is the artist who symbolizes a renewed relationship: a friend and admirer of the Arezzo artist, he also became his collaborator and did not hesitate to translate into painting some of his graphic inventions in politically and culturally strategic places in the city of Bologna.

The Golden Chariot
curated by Alessandra Griffo and Maria Matilde Simari
Pitti Palace, Sala delle Nicchie
December 11, 2018 - March 17, 2019
The Baroque carnival, its festivities, masked and symbolic floats: the exhibition focuses on a precise historical event, the lavish setting organized by Prince Giovan Battista Borghese for the Roman carnival of 1664, documented by the painting by Giovanni Paolo Schor, a collaborator of Pietro da Cortona and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The monumental composition work was purchased in 2018 by the Uffizi Galleries, and is destined for the Museo delle Carrozze, soon to open in the Rondò di Bacco in the Pitti Palace. In the meantime, the exhibition investigates the significance and spectacularity of the sumptuous golden chariot, the exuberant protagonist of this Baroque festival described with infinitesimal and virtuosic attention to detail, and ranges over the carnival theme of the period and its various declinations.

Florentine plots
Medici tapestries for the history of the city
curated by Alessandra Griffo and Lucia Meoni
Pitti Palace, White Room
December 18, 2018 - February 17, 2019
The three tapestries entitled Florentine Stories will be displayed at the end of a first delicate restoration phase that will allow the prestigious series originally intended for the Sala di Gualdrada Berti in Palazzo Vecchio to be admired in its entirety after centuries. Woven by the Medici manufactory by 1564 on cartoons by Federico Lamberto Sustris, the cloths depict The Consecration of the Baptistery, The Goths Besiege Fiesole and The League between Florence and Fiesole, in a rare thematic choice that focused on episodes from the city’s ancient period. The exhibition will be an opportunity to compare the cloths with the preparatory drawings, suitably enlarged on digital support, and examine in detail their execution practice, which is essential to define the conclusion of the conservation intervention.

In the image, a detail of Pontormo’s Visitation

From Leonardo da Vinci to Maria Lai, Giorgio Vasari to Pontormo: here are all the Uffizi exhibitions in 2018

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