Major exhibitions in 2022: the 10 most anticipated events, from Renoir to Jeff Koons

Now that we have begun, a few weeks ago, to visit exhibitions and museums again after the long months of closures due to the restrictive measures imposed by the government, there is an eagerness to return to our cultural venues, and above all, there is an eagerness to find out what awaits us in the fall and for 2022: indeed, a number of important and long-awaited events are on the horizon, many of them not to be missed.

Meanwhile, 2022 will be theyear of Italy’s two most important Biennales. It starts with the Venice Biennale, now in its 59th edition, which will be held from April 23 to November 27, 2022: the theme of the international exhibition, curated by Italian Cecilia Alemani, is The Milk of Dreams, announced a few days ago. A title borrowed from a book by Leonora Carrington to talk about topics such as technology, ecology and the Earth, our relationship with the body. And there is also great anticipation for the Italian Pavilion, which will be curated by Eugenio Viola: the names of the artists (or artist) at the center of the exhibition are expected soon. The other Biennale is the Florence Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato: edition number 32 of the antiques fair in the splendid venue of Palazzo Corsini will be held from September 24 to October 2, 2022.

As for major exhibitions, it will start in the fall with Jeff Koons at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, one of the most anticipated events of the season: his solo show, titled Shine, will be held from October 2, 2021 to January 30, 2022 and will feature a wide selection of some of the most important works of his career to investigate the concept of “shine” (splendor, glow, preciousness, lapping up some of the fundamental themes of the American’s art, such as the contrast between being and appearing). Another international art star will arrive in Italy, in 2022: it is Anish Kapoor to whom the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice will dedicate a retrospective from April 20 to October 9, 2022. The exhibition will be curated by Taco Dibbits, director general of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and will be the first time for a contemporary British artist in the halls of the museum, which has opened its doors to living artists for the past few years. Already announced is a dialogue with the lagoon museum’s collections of medieval and Renaissance art. Finally, the third major event reserved for contemporary art will be Thomas Hirschhorn ’s solo exhibition entitled The Purple Line and scheduled at MAXXI in Rome from October 22, 2021 to March 6, 2022. For the first time, his Pixel-Collages, a large cycle made between 2015 and 2017, will be brought together and displayed along a purple wall (the “Purple Line,” precisely) in Gallery 3 of the Roman museum.

Turning to ancient and modern art, here are five of the most anticipated events. There is great curiosity about the new exhibition course of the Galleria Borghese in Rome: having archived the exhibitions of contemporary “stars,” there is a return to events better calibrated for the rooms of the bourgeois residence (as announced on these pages by the new director Francesca Cappelletti) with Balliamo? Guido Reni in Rome. Dance and Landscape, a small but dense exhibition-dossier devoted to Guido Reni’s Danza campestre, the Roman museum’s latest major acquisition (dates to mark on your calendar: November 2021 to February 2022). Also in Rome, to be marked in the agenda is the arrival of the great critic Jean Clair, who at the Scuderie del Quirinale, from October 5, 2021 to January 9, 2022, curates an exhibition entirely dedicated to Dante, with a title composed of a single but powerful word: Inferno. And expectations are already high.

Again, for the 600th anniversary of the birth of Federico da Montefeltro, the great duke of Urbino born in Gubbio in 1422, the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino and the city of Gubbio will organize a major exhibition dedicated precisely to his figure (dates yet to be decided). On the other hand, the dates of an appointment that will be much appreciated by lovers ofImpressionism are already known: in Rovigo, Palazzo Roverella will in fact host a monographic exhibition on Pierre-Auguste Renoir entitled Renoir and Italy, curated by Paolo Bolpagni and scheduled from February 26 to June 26, 2022. Finally, still in the Veneto region, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice will host, from April 9 to September 26, 2022, a major international project that will then stop in Germany: it is Surrealism and Magic. Enchanted Modernity, an exhibition that will investigate the relationship between surrealism and magic.

Photo: Galleria Borghese, Mariano Rossi’s Salon. Ph. Credit A. Novelli

Major exhibitions in 2022: the 10 most anticipated events, from Renoir to Jeff Koons

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