Milan, here are all the 2019-2020 exhibitions: from Ingres to Leonardo da Vinci, from Monet and van Gogh to Antonello da Messina

The 2019 exhibition program was presented today in Milan, with some anticipation of 2020. In the conference room of the Palazzo Reale (which, as usual, will be the centerpiece of Milan’s exhibition program), Mayor Giuseppe Sala and Culture Councillor Filippo Del Corno illustrated next year’s rich proposal: the 2019 program, despite the richness and variety of the overall proposal, is obviously centered on the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, which run throughout the year with a series of exhibition projects in different spaces of the city: from the Castello Sforzesco, the natural venue for Leonardo’s celebrations as the “home” of the Da Vinci genius during his time in Milan in the service of the Sforza family and the “set” of one of the most important Leonardo interventions that have survived the passage of time (the Sala delle Asse), passing through the Palazzo Reale itself, which dedicates three exhibitions to his work in the arts and sciences, and how Leonardo influenced the way of representing reality from then on, to the Museo del Novecento, which poses an unusual dialogue between Lucio Fontana and the great Renaissance master.

In particular, the Castello Sforzesco, in addition to reopening to the public the Sala delle Asse with a multimedia intervention that will guide visitors in the reading of the grandiose work designed to celebrate Ludovico il Moro, will offer visitors a virtual tour to discover Leonardo’s places in Milan, as the artist must have experienced them during his stays in Milan. The Sala dei Ducali will also display a selection of original drawings by Leonardo, Leonardo’s and other Renaissance artists, from important Italian and foreign institutions and related to the iconography of the Sala delle Asse, particularly the Monochrome and the extraordinary preparatory drawing traces that have recently emerged on the walls after study and restoration work. Other important exhibition projects are dedicated by the various institutions to artists or movements or experiences that have marked our art-historical experience, consistent with the objectives and identity of the individual museums or exhibition venues.

Alongside the exhibitions on Leonardo, in 2019 Palazzo Reale is presenting major exhibitions dedicated to Antonello da Messina, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Giorgio De Chirico, and Emilio Vedova: four exhibition projects of great scientific and curatorial quality relating to artists who have never had such an extensive and in-depth retrospective in Milan. Antonello da Messina was the greatest portrait painter of the fifteenth century, and Vasari recounted him in his celebrated Lives as the one who had received the secret of oil painting: this exhibition will allow the Milanese public to admire extraordinary masterpieces for the first time, while also enabling a broader reflection on the stages of the artist’s formation in that great melting pot that was once the Mediterranean basin: a kind of “training novel” developed between his native Sicily, Naples and Rome, reaching as far as Venice and Milan, which led him in the last years of his career to be unanimously recognized and in demand by patrons of the highest prestige as the greatest among the painters of his time.

The original exhibition project designed for Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres recounts not only the work of the artist who was most inspired by Raphael, but also the artistic life at the time of Napoleon, with a special focus on Milan, which in the political and artistic reorganization of that time played a fundamental role. In a season of great prosperity, the city was heavily reshaped in its monuments, green spaces and urban infrastructure, starting with the new Brera Art Gallery. Italian artists were also involved in the wave of work and building sites that followed: notably Appiani in painting and Canova in sculpture. But Ingres is an integral part of these intersecting histories, without which today’s Europe would be incomprehensible. Indeed, in 1800 he competed for the prix de Rome, and in 1806, after completing the large “Napoleon in Sacred Costume,” on display in the exhibition, he was finally in Rome, where he could further his studies and passion for Raphael. Sent to Italy under the Empire and then involved in the imperial building sites in Rome, Ingres decided to remain “Italian” until 1824, to return later to direct the Villa Medici.

The anthological exhibition dedicated to Giorgio de Chirico, who is also the protagonist of the Milanese civic collections of Casa Boschi Di Stefano and the Museo del Novecento, recounts at Palazzo Reale the artist’s evolution through his most significant canvases: an original slant to describe de Chirico’s world, which keeps itself constantly poised between dream and reality, between neoclassical cues and dreamlike visions, populated by imaginary characters.

Emilio Vedova is instead recounted in his seventy years of work, on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, with an original project that follows the artist’s creative path step by step, starting from the beginnings (coinciding with the production of a series of drawings of Venetian architecture) where graphics and sign lead to a scratchy and energetic landscape, anticipatory of a formless doing, to arrive at the selection of his last works, before his death.

Consistent with their identity mission, the exhibition projects of Museo del Novecento, GAM and PAC delve into some of the artists who are protagonists of that stretch of art history of which they are specialists. At the Museo del Novecento, in fact, we find Filippo De Pisis, Adriana Bisi Fabbri, Remo Bianchi, Renata Boero, Marinella Pirello and Lucio Fontana, artists who lived and worked in that period of great creative vivacity. At the GAM Galleria d’Arte Moderna, starting with the marble Vestal, among Antonio Canova ’s masterpieces preserved and exhibited in the Gallery, an exhibition reconstructs the genesis and evolution of “ideal heads,” a highly successful strand in which the sculptor investigates the infinite variations of ideal beauty; the GAM also pays tribute to Angelo Morbelli, one of the protagonists of Divisionist painting, and to Andrea Ventura, one of the best-known illustrators on the international art scene who has created splendid plates on the history of the GAM’s collections, particularly some 19th-century masterpieces. Finally, the PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea dedicates an exhibition to its own designer, Ignazio Gardella, the great engineer, architect and designer who died 20 years ago and who in 1948 won the design competition to transform the old stables of the Villa Reale on Via Palestro into a modern and flexible exhibition space capable of housing the civic collection of 20th-century works. Dedicated to promoting contemporary creativity, the PAC in 2019 will also produce solo shows of contemporary artists Anna Maria Maiolino and Cesare Viel, as well as a focus on Australian contemporary art. The MuDeC Museo delle Culture also continues the path of deepening relations between different worlds with an exhibition project investigating the relationship between Impressionism and Japonism (featuring artists such as Monet, van Gogh and Gauguin), and the Far East is always the reference of cultural comparison within the exhibition project dedicated to Roy Lichtenstein. Also on the program are focuses on traditions and collections of Japanese art and an in-depth study of Peruvian culture, particularly the events linked to the migratory flows between Peru and Italy, with a lunge on the Milanese community, the fourth largest in the city. Also important and coherent is the layout of the anticipations for 2020, a year dedicated to women’s creativity, which includes a retrospective of Maria Lai at the Museo del Novecento, the first solo exhibition in Italy of Cuban artist Tania Bruguera at PAC and an exhibition dedicated to women in the Russian avant-garde of the 20th century.

Below is the full program of exhibitions.

CIVIC AQUARIUM

TERESA MARESCA. SONG OF MYSELF
CIVIC AQUARIUM
april 2, 2019 - may 5, 2019
curated by Raffaella Resch

The exhibition brings together some of the artist’s cycles inspired by meditation on nature, with a style close to the expressionism of the Neue Wilden (New Savages) and with contents strongly rooted in American Transcendentalist thought. Walt Whitman’s poetry is the most direct reference for the Song of Myself pictorial series, shown here in its entirety for the first time, with a selection of other recent works and artist’s books.

DISCOVERING THE BEAUTY OF THE CYCLADES - W. M. WILMAN
CIVIC AQUARIUM
may 2019 - june 2019

“Discovering the Beauty of the Cyclades” is a photographic project focusing on the natural beauty of the islands of this Aegean archipelago, from the volcano of Santorini to the wild and less explored areas of Ios, Sikinos, Folegandros, Poliegos, Kimolos, Milos and Serifos. Land and sea are dominant elements in the work, which took over four years to complete, their interaction of first interest from the beginning. This will be W. M. Wilman’s first exhibition in Milan.

MOLITOR 1985_ GIL RIGOULET
CIVIC AQUARIUM
June 2019
curated by Elisabetta Polezzo and Claudio Composti

The first Italian exhibition of Gil Rigoulet, a photographer who has worked for major international publications and exhibited with great photographers such as Helmut Newton, William Klein, Franco Fontana and others. It is a unique project in which, using Polaroids and black-and-white prints, the photographer narrated about the famous Molitor pool, built in 1929 just outside Paris, which also became famous for being the catwalk for the world’s first bikinis. Rigoulet tells us about that mythical place through his shots, with glimpses of the female body, water and social rituals. His anthropological research has been called street photography.

BLAU - ELIA FESTA
CIVIC AQUARIUM
september 13, 2019 - october 27, 2019

The project aims to bring into dialogue with water and the fluid element the shaded and almost kaleidoscopic forms of Elia Festa’s images, in which the stability of the corporeal and figurative dimension is intertwined with the deformations it undergoes through the medium of an almost dreamlike vision that exploits the inexhaustible potential of technology. The exhibition, which follows an anthology of the artist’s work in the spring of 2017, will feature photographs, paintings and small sculptures, in a path that is always defined in dialogue with the surrounding space.

SORMANI LIBRARY

GIUSEPPE FAVA. Beyond gioRnalism
SORMANI LIBRARY
end of March 2019 - end of May 2019
curated by Massimiliano Scuriatti and Giovanna Mori

Giuseppe Fava, a Sicilian journalist killed by the Mafia in 1984, is celebrated with an exhibition that illustrates what the journalist represented in Italian culture over the past fifty years. Alongside his work as a reporter, Fava used all forms of communication and left us a production of great artistic value. The exhibition sees the involvement of the Giuseppe Fava Foundation.

GIACOMO LEOPARDI: INFINITE ENCHANTMENT
SORMANI LIBRARY
end of September 2019 - end of November 2019

On the bicentennial of the composition of “The Infinite,” the Central Library dedicates an exhibition to Giacomo Leopardi. Drawing on the extensive and significant bibliographic documentation in the Institute’s collections, the exhibition aims to highlight the importance of his stay in Milan. The exhibition will be held in collaboration with the National Center for Leopardi Studies and is part of the schedule of celebrations of the important Leopardi anniversary.

HOUSE OF MEMORY

TRIBUTE TO NINO CROCIANI
HOUSE OF MEMORY
february 2019

A tribute to the recently deceased artist (1930 -2018) active in Milan for more than fifty years. From the revolutionary instances of the 1970s, which saw him in the forefront as a political activist, he was always faithful to an idea of art as an instrument of intellectual revolution. Crociani is an artist who stands beyond easy placements, groups, movements. His research is marked by the history of art that he studied and made his own: Rembrandt, Goya, Munch, the German Expressionists, Max Beckmann in particular. An experimenter, a passionate scholar of the language he mainly uses: etching.

JENNY WIEGMANN PILES
MEMORY HOUSE
spring 2019

After those of Bianca Orsi and Kathe Kollwitz, in the wake of the path “Sentiment and Civil Passion” carried out by the “Artists and Resistance” working group of the Milanese ANPI, we intend to re-propose with a third exhibition the figure and work of a great sculptor, a protagonist between the two wars and then in the postwar period of Milanese and Italian figurative culture as well as of her native Germany, an artist of recognized European dimension. Jenny Wiegmann Mucchi (Berlin Spandau 1895 - Berlin 1969), in art simply Genni, was artistically formed in Germany in a manner similar to the great painter Kathe Kollwitz (for whom she would always have great admiration and friendship), in the same attendance at private girls’ schools, where teaching was predominantly based on drawing and graphics. But the young Wiegmann had a preference for sculpture from the very beginning and took courses from the sculptor August Kraus, based on the history of Greco-Roman art, which was considered the “norm and model.” From Berlin he moved on to Paris and then to Italy. In 1933 she married Gabriele Mucchi, an Italian architect and painter, with whom she moved to Milan.
The exhibition brings together about 35 works of sculpture (bronze, concrete, wood, large and small sizes), as well as a dozen original drawings and various documentary material, ensuring an adequate and prestigious representation of the sculptor’s creative personality.

URBAN REFUGEES. PHOTO BY PAOLA DI BELLO
HOUSE OF MEMORY
april 2019

Milanese by adoption, Paola Di Bello was born in Naples in 1961. A photographer and videomaker, she trained as an artist in her father Bruno’s studio. Her research investigates some sociopolitical issues of the contemporary city, entering into situations of daily life often characterized by deep human unease. He has created photographic campaigns on the theme of urban peripheries, South American favelas, the homeless and Roma communities, traveling between New York and Baghdad, Tokyo and Naples, Romania and Mirafiori. He has held the chair of Photography at the Brera Academy since 2006.

CASA MUSEO BOSCHI DI STEFANO

ALFONSO FRANCO GRASSI’S HATS DISPLAYED ON PAOLO LOMAZZI’S HANGERS
CASA MUSEO BOSCHI DI STEFANO
April 9 - 14, 2019
curated by Anty Pansera

The exhibition, organized on the occasion of the Fuorisalone week, linked to the Salone del Mobile, features a selection of hats from Alfonso Franco Grassi’s collection, consisting of more than two hundred hats and headgear of military, professional or ethnographic scope. Exceptionally, the hats will be exhibited using hangers designed by Studio De Pas D’Urbino Lomazzi and chosen for the occasion by architect Paolo Lomazzi.

RALPH RUMNEY AND THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATIONIST
STEFANO BOSCO HOUSE MUSEUM
june 2019 - september 2019
curated by Elena Di Raddo

Ralph Rumeny (1934-2002) was one of the leading figures of Lettrism and the Situationist International (S.I.), groups that helped disrupt the rules of art in the late 1950s with the intention of bringing art closer to life. The presence of some of his works in the collection of the Boschi Di Stefano Collection reveals the happy collector’s intuition and attention to novelty of the Boschi couple, who became true patrons for the young artist when he began to visit Italy.

FROM THE BORGONUOVO GALLERY TO THE GALLERIA DELLE ORE
STEFANO BOSCHI HOUSE MUSEUM
november 2019 - january 2020

The exhibition displays works purchased by the Boschi Di Stefano couple from the Borgonuovo Gallery and the Galleria delle Ore, and donated by them to the City of Milan. Trait d’union between these different experiences was Giovanni Fumagalli, a self-taught painter who in the postwar period had directed the Galleria Borgonuovo, one of the centers of realism in the Lombard capital, and in 1957 founded the Galleria delle Ore.

SFORZA CASTLE

CARLA CERATI. ’68 AND ’DYING OF CLASS’
SFORZESCO CASTLE, CONFERENCE ROOM PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE - CIVIC COLLECTION OF PRINTS “A. BERTARELLI”
november 23, 2018 - january 22, 2019
curated by Silvia Paoli and Elena Ceratti

Carla Cerati, a fundamental figure in Italian and international photography, from 1960 to 1980 photographed the political struggles and cultural debate in Milan: the historic meetings at the Einaudi bookstore, the life of the most diverse social groups, the rituals of the city’s cultural circles, the protests of ’68, the massacres, the Calabresi - Lotta Continua trial, up to the end of the 1970s, with the kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro. The exhibition will feature photographs from the book “Dying in Class. Survey of Asylums,” relating to ’68 and the debate of those years.

NECESSARY AND PROFITABLE WARNINGS TO LIBRARIANS AND LOVERS OF GOOD BOOKS
CASTELLO SFORZESCO. TRIVULZIANA LIBRARY | TREASURE ROOM
december 21, 2018 - april 14, 2019
curated by Isabella Fiorentini, Loredana Minenna with Stefano Dalla Via

The initiative, which makes use of the expertise of the Institute’s restoration laboratory, aims to bring children and adults closer to the world of books, with the use of nonspecialized language and the setting up of educational dioramas that illustrate the characteristics of paper and parchment and their possible damage. Original manuscript and printed volumes are on display, allowing visitors to familiarize themselves with the book object in its material dimension. An educational exhibition dedicated to the chemical-physical and biological enemies of books and documents.

A TREASURE TROVE OF PAPER AND PARCHMENT. THE VISCONTI SFORZESCHI ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS AT THE CASTLE OF MILAN
SFORZESCO CASTLE. TRIVULZIANA LIBRARY | TREASURE ROOM
may 2019 - july 2019
Curated by Isabella Fiorentini, Loredana Minenna and Marzia Pontone
Nine manuscripts of Visconti-Sforza origin are preserved today at the Milan Castle.

The exhibition, “A Treasure of Paper and Parchment,” proposed by the Trivulziana Library intends to offer visitors the opportunity to relive the cultural climate of the ducal court at the time of Leonardo da Vinci’s stay in Milan through pages of extraordinary historical value and to appreciate the artistic trends then in progress in the field of illuminated decoration. The manuscripts will be flanked by rare examples of coeval printed editions in the exhibition.

LEONARDO AND THE SALA DELLE ASSE BETWEEN NATURE, ART AND SCIENCE
SFORZESCO CASTLE, DUCAL HALL
may 2019 - august 2019
curated by Claudio Salsi

The exhibition is conceived around a rigorous selection of original drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo and other Renaissance artists from important Italian and foreign institutions. The drawings reveal stringent iconographic and stylistic relationships with the Sala delle Asse and in particular with the Monochrome and with the extraordinary traces of preparatory drawing that have recently emerged on the walls below the layers of scialbo.

VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF LEONARDO’S MILAN. MULTIMEDIA TOUR
SFORZESCO CASTLE, HALL OF ARMS
may 2019 - january 2020
curated by Edoardo Rossetti and Ilaria De Palma - multimedia realization: Massimo Chimenti

A virtual tour leads visitors to discover Leonardo’s places in Milan as the artist must have experienced them during his stays in Milan (at different times between 1482 and 1512), bringing to the surface, five centuries later, the social composition and appearance of urban spaces, palaces, interior gardens, and sacred buildings. Thanks to georeferential visual mapping, it is possible to identify what is still preserved of those places.

UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE MOOR. THE HALL OF THE AXES
SFORZESCO CASTLE - MUSEUM OF ANCIENT ART
may 2019 - january 2020
curated by Francesca Tasso, Michela Palazzo - multimedia realization: Massimo Chimenti

With the scaffolding of the restoration removed, Leonardo’s Sala delle Asse becomes visible again, and thanks to a gallery, visitors will be able to admire the Monochrome up close and discover the exceptional traces of preparatory drawing depicting landscape backgrounds, trunks, branches and leaves, which emerged during the removal of the layers of dullness from the walls. A multimedia installation guides visitors through the reading of the grandiose work designed to celebrate Ludovico il Moro.

CESARE COLOMBO (1935-2016). A PHOTOGRAPHER IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY MILAN
SFORZESCO CASTLE, VISCONTEA HALL
november 2019 - february 2020
curated by Silvia Paoli, with Sabina and Silvia Colombo

The exhibition aims to pay tribute to the figure of Cesare Colombo, an important photographer of the Italian twentieth century, historian, critic, curator of important exhibitions, and since the postwar period animator of debates, who contributed to the significant growth of photographic culture in Italy. The exhibition will include images dedicated to the city of Milan, described in its many architectural, cultural, political and social aspects to offer a vivid biographical account of the Lombard metropolis, along sixty years of urban development, labor transformations, and changes in the social fabric.

gam

MORBELLI (1853-1919)
GAM
March 15-June 16, 2019
curated by Paola Zatti

On the occasion of the centenary of Angelo Morbelli’s death, GAM pays tribute to one of the protagonists of Divisionist painting. The exhibition documents salient aspects of his production, technical experimentation and the elaboration of certain themes, from social subjects to views of Milan and Symbolist themes. Starting from the nucleus of works preserved by the museum, Morbelli’s work is explored in depth with national and international loans and compared with his contemporaries such as Pellizza da Volpedo and Segantini, up to the early experiences of Umberto Boccioni.

ANDREA VENTURA. FAMILY HEIRLOOMS AND MORE
GAM
June 27-September 1, 2019
curated by Paola Zatti

The exhibition dedicated to one of the best-known illustrators on the international art scene arose from the desire to document, through original plates, a work that Andrea Ventura has done on the history of the GAM collections, in particular some nineteenth-century masterpieces, composed of images published in 2018 under the title . The presentation of this work will be an opportunity to present various aspects of the author’s work, ranging from the similar series, moving and evocative of a bygone era, dedicated to the history of his family and the last century, “Giulia. A Girl of the Twentieth Century,” through the numerous series of portraits made for many international magazines, including the New York Times and the New Yorker, to the more recent production of still lifes.

ARNALDO POMODORO PRIZE
GAM
september 2019 - october 2019

The Arnaldo Pomodoro Prize for Sculpture, now in its Va edition, was established in 2006 and occurs every two years. Chaired by an international Selection Committee, its task is to identify an emerging sculptor - aged between 25 and 45 - whose personal research expresses a reflection on the very idea and practice of making sculpture today. The Foundation will dedicate a solo exhibition to the winner, who will be announced in the spring, which on this occasion, thanks to the support of the City of Milan, will be held at GAM in fall 2019.

ANTONIO CANOVA. IDEAL HEADS
GAM
october 2019 - february 2020
curated by Omar Cucciniello, Paola Zatti and with the collaboration of Fernando Mazzocca

At the height of his career, when he was Europe’s most famous and in-demand living sculptor, Antonio Canova began to elaborate a typology of busts that had immediate fortune among his contemporaries, which he called “ideal heads,” a highly successful strand in which the sculptor investigates the infinite variations of ideal beauty. Starting with the marble Vestal, among GAM’s Neoclassical masterpieces, the exhibition reconstructs the genesis and evolution of this genre through focused comparisons and a selection of pieces chosen for quality.

MUBA
NATURE
MUBA | CHILDREN’S MUSEUM
january 24, 2019 - january 6, 2020

A play-exhibition that aims to broaden children’s observation skills and stimulate their curiosity, providing them with tools to facilitate the exploration of Nature. Four play installations propose, through the telling of four aspects of Nature - namely color, space, form and matter - activities and experiences that cannot be found outside in a traditional nature situation.

MUDEC

MILAN CITY WORLD #04 PERU
MUDEC
march 14, 2019 - july 14, 2019

“Milan City World” is a social and anthropological research project that each year features exhibitions and event schedules on one of the many communities living in the city. The fourth edition traces the events related to migration flows between Peru and Italy, with an in-depth look at the Milanese community, the fourth largest community in the city. Pivotal figures in the exhibition are economist Antonello Gerbi and artist Jorge Eduardo Eielson, illustrious examples of migration between Milan and Lima.

ROY LICHTENSTEIN. EDITION
MUDEC
May 1, 2019 - September 8, 2019
curated by Gianni Mercurio

The exhibition offers a reinterpretation of the great American artist’s work through 70 Editions - multiples, which played a crucial role in Roy Lichtenstein’s work. The works on display range from pop subjects of the 1960s to the 1990s from private American and European museum collections. Within the itinerary is a focus on Asian-inspired works that highlight the artist’s knowledge of Eastern graphic art in which he evokes comparison with the great masters of the Chinese and Japanese traditions.

KOKESHI: the Tohoku craft tradition.
MUDEC
May 18-June 2, 2019

Doll-looking artifacts known as kokeshi have been produced for about two centuries in northeastern Japan and are considered the cultural emblem of the Tohoku region and Japan in general. As with most artistic wood carvings, their production begins with the selection and cutting of the tree that will be worked on by the master craftsman and ends with the painted decoration that will give the doll an appearance, almost always feminine, which differs according to school, era, and area of production. This exhibition presents for the first time in Italy a large collection of traditional, antique and modern kokeshi, daruma and toys from private Italian collections and from different schools of master craftsmen in Tohoku. During the exhibition there will be lectures given by specialists from various fields of study and demonstrations of the techniques of crafting and decorating these particular objects, highlighting their artistic, cultural and philosophical characters.

A JAPANESE MUSEUM IN LOMBARDY: THE COLLECTION OF COUNT GIOVANNI BATTISTA LUCINI PASSALACQUA
MUDEC
october 2019 - february 2020

The exhibition, focusing on the extraordinary “Japanese Museum,” tells the story of the collection collected by Count Giovanni Battista Lucini Passalacqua during his travels along the Silk Road. The objects collected by the Count once he arrived in Italy were exhibited at the 1874 Historical Exhibition of Industrial Art and later went on to form the Passalacqua Japanese Museum at the Count’s villa on Lake Como. The collection consists of heterogeneous objects: bronzes, ceramics, ivories, textile artifacts, lacquerware and armor from the Edo period.

DREAMS OF THE EAST. MONET, VAN GOGH, GAUGUIN, THE ITALIANS AND JAPAN.
MUDEC
Oct. 1, 2019 - Feb. 3, 2020
curated by Flemming Friborg with Paola Zatti

Mudec addresses the theme of Japanism at the moment of its involvement in the development of the modern art movement par excellence:impressionism. Presenting first-rate Impressionist and academic paintings along with a large number of Ukiyo-e, Japanese and “Japonist” masterpieces, it will re-examine the dynamics of French art’s journey and its vision of the Far East. The exhibition is conceived as an interdisciplinary exercise combining art history, Japanese cultural studies, history tout court and cultural history.

WHEN ITALY DISCOVERED JAPAN. ITO MANCIO AND THE FIRST JAPANESE “AMBASSADORSHIPS” TO EUROPE (1585 -1615)
MUDEC
october 1, 2019 - march 31, 2020

The exhibition aims to retrace the stories and adventures experienced by the protagonists of the Japanese ambassadorships to Italy between 1585 and 1615, highlighting the cultural exchanges derived from them. In fact, the first contact with the four young Japanese ambassadors, members of the ruling class converted to Christianity, represents a fundamental moment in the encounter between two very distant cultural realities that would soon become even more so with the closure of Japanese ports in 1603. The exhibition project will also devote special attention to the figure of Ito Mancio, Japanese ambassador, whose portrait was painted by Domenico Tintoretto in 1585.

ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

THE JOURNEY OF THE CHIMERA. THE ETRUSCANS IN MILAN BETWEEN ARCHAEOLOGY AND COLLECTING
ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
december 12, 2018 - may 12, 2019
curated by Giulio Paolucci and Anna Provenzali

In collaboration with Fondazione Luigi Rovati and Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Metropolitan City of Milan.

The exhibition draws attention to the link between the city of Milan and the Etruscans, starting with the oldest nucleus of the Milanese Archaeological Collections formed between thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, moving on from the great exhibition on the Etruscans held at Palazzo Reale in 1955, and then to the scientific contribution of the Fondazione Lerici excavations (whose findings flowed in part to the City of Milan) and the excavations conducted by the city’s universities, which will be finally joined by the opening to the public of the Fondazione Rovati’s Etruscan Museum.

MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
MARINELLA PIRELLI. EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA
MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
march 22, 2019 - august 21, 2019
curated by Lucia Aspesi and Iolanda Ratti

The Museo del Novecento presents the first anthological exhibition dedicated to Marinella Pirelli (1925-2009), an artist active in Italy since the Second Postwar period. The exhibition aims to present and recontextualize in the national and international art scene Pirelli’s multifaceted activity until the 1970s, a period in which, in addition to pursuing a singular pictorial and graphic research, the artist achieved original and pioneering results in the field of experimental cinema.

RENATA BOERO. KROMO-KRONOS
MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
april 2, 2019 - june 23, 2019
curated by Anna Daneri and Iolanda Ratti

The exhibition proposes a critical reinterpretation of the seminal work of Renata Boero, a Genoese artist active on the international scene since the 1960s, starting with the well-known “Chromograms,” works made by experimenting with natural pigments and organic elements, which in the various declinations expressed by the “Paper Flowers” series and the more recent “Germinations” are understood as the ideal center of the artist’s research. The exhibition is complemented by an extensive documentary and bibliographical apparatus.

LUCIO FONTANA. HOMAGE TO LEONARDO
MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
june 14, 2019 - september 15, 2019
curated by Davide Colombo

Starting from a reasoning on the iconography of the horse, the prancing horse and the horse and rider so frequent in important artists of the twentieth century who inevitably confronted the past, we want to relate a part of Lucio Fontana’s artistic research, especially of the 1930s, to the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The reflection on the Fontana-Leonardo comparison starts from the three drawings of battles and horses published in Morosini’s monograph and expands to an analysis of the drawings dedicated to the theme of battles and horses with or without a rider made by Fontana in those years, relating them to those of Leonardo.

REMO WHITE. THE IMPRINTS OF MEMORY
MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, ARCHIVES SPACE
july 5, 2019 - october 6, 2019
Curated by Lorella Giudici with the collaboration of the Remo Bianco Foundation

The exhibition intends to build a path that, within the artist’s multifaceted production, leads the viewer among the different incursions Bianco has made into memory: from the reminiscence of forms revealed in the three-dimensional void of the 3Ds, to the melancholic narrative enclosed in the Sacchettini, from the metaphysical expectation of the Sculture Neve to the originality of the Quadri Parlanti from whose monochrome surfaces the artist’s voice escapes.

INTELLIGENCE HAS NO GENDER. ADRIANA BISI FABBRI AND THE NETWORK OF THE ARTS (1900 - 1918)
MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, ARCHIVES SPACE
october 25, 2019 - march 8, 2020
curated by Danka Giacon and Giovanna Ginex

Adriana Bisi Fabbri (Ferrara, 1881 - Travedona Monate, 1918) was an artist engaged in different areas of turn-of-the-century culture: from painting to drawing to caricature. Through the study of the unpublished epistolary between Adriana and her husband Giannetto Bisi, but also from the links with other protagonists of the time - Boccioni, Minerbi, Sommariva - it is possible to reconstruct a dense and interesting artistic network of the early 20th century. The exhibition is the result of two years of study and reorganization of the Bisi Crotti Fund owned by the Museo del Novecento.

FILIPPO DE PISIS
MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, ARCHIVES SPACE
curated by Pier Giovanni Castagnoli

Extensive monographic exhibition dedicated to Ferrara artist Filippo de Pisis. The exhibition will investigate the long pictorial journey through the different phases that characterize his always innovative intellectual path. De Pisis traveled extensively in Italy, Ferrara, Rome, Venice, Cortina, Milan, and abroad, always relating to lively and fertile cultural environments that also influenced his activity. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Association for Filippo de Pisis, will have a second stop at Palazzo Altemps - Museo Nazionale Romano, in Rome.

PALAZZO MORANDO | COSTUME FASHION IMAGE
STAR DRESSES. ROSANNA SCHIAFFINO AND FASHION
PALAZZO MORANDO | COSTUME FASHION IMAGE
december 20, 2018 - november 3, 2019
curated by Enrica Morini and Ilaria De Palma

Rosanna Schiaffino’s wardrobe, recently acquired by the City of Milan, is put on display for the first time. The forty or so dresses trace the actress’s career and changing tastes: from pin-up style to the elegance of Forquet, Marucelli, Yves Saint-Laurent, Valentino and Ferré.

BOB KRIEGER. LIVING THROUGH FASHION ’60S, ’70S, ’80S, ’90S.
PALAZZO MORANDO | COSTUME FASHION IMAGE
march 8, 2019 - june 30, 2019

Bob Krieger marked an era in international fashion photography, signing the campaigns of the greatest Italian fashion designers. The exhibition is a journey through the history of Italian fashion and costume that reflect the evolution of a society in rebirth.

LACE AND DESIGN IN CANTÙ
PALAZZO MORANDO | COSTUME FASHION IMAGE
april 6, 2019 - june 30, 2019

curated by Marialuisa Rizzini and Renata Casartelli

Through the exhibition of important artifacts, it will be possible to follow the emergence of innovative research conducted since the 1930s. The projects and ideas of internationally renowned designers, thanks to the skilled hands and technical expertise of lace makers, have transformed lace into a product of the highest design by making unique specimens as works of art.

MILAN AND THE 1960S: HISTORY OF AN UNREPEATABLE DECADE BETWEEN THE ECONOMIC BOOM AND PIAZZA FONTANA
PALAZZO MORANDO | COSTUME FASHION IMAGE
november 2019 - february 2020
curated by Stefano Galli

Milan experienced a golden decade during the 1960s, full of artistic ferment, a daring economic recovery and an unrepeatable vitality that, after the horrors of the war, transformed the Milanese capital into a place of magic.

All this ferment suddenly ceases as dramatically as unexpectedly on December 12, 1969, when the city is shocked by a bomb that rips through the Milanese afternoon. Nothing will ever be the same again.

PAC

ANNA MARIA MAIOLINO. O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
PAC
march 29, 2019 - june 9, 2019
curated by Diego Sileo

Drawing inspiration from women’s everyday imagery and the experience of an oppressive and censorious dictatorship - that of Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s - Anna Maria Maiolino, Italian by origin and Brazilian by adoption, creates works full of vital energy. Through performances, sculptures, videos, photographs and drawings, the artist investigates human relationships, the difficulties of communication and expression, at the border between human physicality and the intimate and spiritual sphere. At PAC, the artist will create a site-specific installation and a new performance.

AUSTRALIA. THE WAYS OF SONGS
PAC
june 28, 2019 - september 8, 2019
curated by Eugenio Viola

PAC continues its exploration of the continents in the footsteps of art by drawing a map of Australia’s artistic geography: from artists of Aboriginal nationality to those who have come to Australia from Europe or Asia, contributing to the formation of today’s Melting Pot. Installations, paintings, videos and performances address the themes of cultural diversity and the search for one’s roots, the anxieties and lacerations of an uncertain present, in a labyrinth of paths inspired by B. Chatwin.

CESARE VIEL. MORE NO ONE ANYWHERE
PAC
October 12 - December 1, 2019
curated by Diego Sileo

Words and the body, accompanied by prose, performance, video, photography, and drawings, are the protagonists of the works of Cesare Viel, who since the early 1990s has been using performance, disguise, transformations, makeup, recitations, or songs in a process of transmitting self to others. Central to his research is the role of the word, between thought and story, and the emotional involvement between the narrator and the viewer, which make art a moment of emotional exchange to dialogue with the community.

IGNAZIO GARDELLA 1928 - 1999
PAC
december 16, 2019 - february 2, 2020
curated by Leonardo Cavalli

The exhibition reflects on the transformations of design culture and the architectural profession through one of the most prominent figures on the contemporary Italian architectural scene, Ignazio Gardella (1905-1999). The professional trajectory of Gardella, designer of the PAC, recognized as one of the masters of the modern, is characterized by his ability to accompany with a constant critical attitude the changing cultural climate, social and economic context, and above all ways of living and lifestyles.

ROYAL PALACE

PAOLO GRASSI “ ...WITHOUT A FOOL LIKE ME, IMMODESTLY A POET OF ORGANIZATION...”
ROYAL PALACE
january 26 - march 24, 2019
curated by Fabio Francione

An exhibition marking 100 years since the birth of Paolo Grassi, founder in 1947 of the Piccolo Teatro, together with Giorgio Strehler and Nina Vinchi. The sections will have an important photographic set-up that will weave together his biography, his illustrious encounters, travels and tours, personal history and relationship with Strehler, and his confrontation with politics, up to a selection of events in Italy and around the world during that period.

ANTONELLO DA MESSINA. INSIDE PAINTING
ROYAL PALACE
february 21, 2019 - june 2, 2019
curated by Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa

The exhibition was created with the intention of investigating the art of Antonello da Messina with an analytical, precise gaze, capable of focusing on every single trait of his unparalleled technique. For this reason, alongside Antonello’s works, the notebooks of Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle, the critic who - first - reconstructed the Sicilian artist’s catalog, will be on display.

GEO POLETTI’S STILL LIFES
ROYAL PALACE
february 28, 2019 - march 24, 2019
curated by Paolo Biscottini and Annalisa Zanni

The Still Lifes of Geo Poletti. A Milanese Collection curated by Paolo Biscottini, Annalisa Zanni As part of Museo City 2019, Palazzo Reale offers an extraordinary collection of seventeenth/eighteenth-century still lifes that have never been exhibited and come from the collection of Geo Poletti, art historian, conoisseur, known as “the best Milanese connoisseur of seventeenth-century Italian painting.” Milan, with this exhibition, pays tribute, not only to the collection, but also to a great Milanese, known to all the museums of the world.

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF NATURE
ROYAL PALACE
march 5, 2019 - july 7, 2019
curated by Giovanni Agosti and Jacopo Stoppa

Organized on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, the exhibition addresses, by exemplary cases, how the representation of nature in Lombardy also changed thanks to the artist’s stays in Milan. The exhibition includes works of art that, in a spectacular setting, will dialogue with naturalistic artifacts from the Museum of Natural History in Milan.

JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES. ARTISTIC LIFE AT THE TIME OF THE BONAPARTES
ROYAL PALACE
march 9, 2019 - june 23, 2019
curated by Florence Viguier

The exhibition sheds light for the first time on the modernity of Ingres’s artistic production in the European cultural context between 1780 and 1820, with a special focus on the fundamental role played by Milan, one of the most important centers of Napoleonic Europe. Thus emerges the revolutionary scope of the painter of the odalisques, at once realist and mannerist, fascinating as much for his expressive exaggerations as for his taste for the real.

ALCANTARA - 5TH EDITION (WORKING TITLE)
ROYAL PALACE
april 4, 2019 - may 12, 2019
curated by Domitilla Dardi and Angela Rui

When there was no large-scale media communication, the most widely used form of expression over the centuries was figurative language. The fifth appointment of the collaboration between Palazzo Reale and Alcantara, offers cues for assessments of the present: is decoration, updated to real and virtual space and media, still able to codify the values of our time as it has been in the past? The challenge is thrown to four authors of our time, called to intervene site-specific reflecting on these and other possible questions through the use and manipulation of Alcantara, an optimal material for research and experimentation of new languages.

THE ART SIDE OF KARTELL
ROYAL PALACE
April 8, 2019 - May 12, 2019
curated by Ferruccio Laviani

Everyone knows Kartell through its products that over 70 years have made it one of the most important references in Italian and International design. However, not everyone knows how much Kartell and Art have in common, and it is this relationship that “The Art Side of Kartell” shows visitors. Through the narrative path that includes some of the most important chapters of Kartell’s production, the changes of our society during seven decades are told, in parallel with the evolution of the various artistic currents of the 20th century up to the new contemporary expressive languages.

CONTEMPORARY ENCYCLOPEDIC LEONARDO
ROYAL PALACE
may 2019 - august 2019
curated by Studio Azzurro

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, internationally renowned artist collective Studio Azzurro will create an immersive and interactive journey populated by Leonardo machines that are transformed into narrative devices through the use of cutting-edge technology. Visitors will approach the sensitive machines designed by Studio Azzurro to discover Leonardo’s eclectic, encyclopedic and contemporary genius.

LELLI AND MASOTTI
PALAZZO REALE
Black White Piano Forte: May 17, 2019 - May 26, 2019
Musics: May 23, 2019 - June 23, 2019
curated by Marco Pierini

Silvia Lelli and Roberto Masotti, who have been active in the field of performance photography for decades, present “Musiche” and “Bianco Nero Piano Forte,” never before seen in Milan. Artists devoted primarily to music, they have long been photographers at La Scala and have increased their archive to such an extent that it has become one of the most important in the international arena. Recent is the recognition by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage of the Archive.

THE PRE-RAPHAELITES AND ITALY
ROYAL PALACE
june 19, 2019 - october 6, 2019
curated by Carol Jacobi

This exhibition, organized in collaboration with Tate Britain, is based on the London museum’s celebrated collection of Pre-Raphaelite art and includes iconic paintings that are rarely loaned, such as John Everett Millais’s Ophelia (1851-1852) and John William Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott (1888), along with drawings and preparatory studies. The exhibition will illustrate the impact produced by the movement and the centrality, in their poetics, of “Italian” inspiration.

GIORGIO DE CHIRICO
ROYAL PALACE
september 25, 2019 - january 19, 2020
curated by Luca Massimo Barbero

This anthological exhibition recounts Giorgio de Chirico’s artistic evolution through his most significant canvases. An original cut that delves into the 1920s up to the Mysterious Baths of the 1930s, the best-known expression of the artist’s unconscious. The fascinating journey into de Chirico’s world is kept in constant balance between dream and reality, between neoclassical cues and dreamlike visions, populated by imaginary characters.

THE GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM’S THANNHAUSER COLLECTION
ROYAL PALACE
october 2019 - february 2020
curated by Megan Fontanella

The collection of art dealer Justin K. Thannhauser and his wife Hilde Thannhauser, donated to the Guggenheim Museum in 1965, will arrive in Italy for the first time to display its extraordinary sophistication. The exhibition will include a number of paintings and sculptures by Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and modern masters, including Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.

LEONARDO’S DINNER FOR FRANCESCO I: A MASTERPIECE IN SILK AND SILVER
ROYAL PALACE
october 7, 2019 - november 17, 2019
curated by Pietro Marani

On display, for the first time after its restoration, is a copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper made in tapestry between 1505 and 1510, commissioned by Louise of Savoy and Francis Duke of Angouleme, later King Francis I of France. Kept in the Vatican Museums, it was probably woven in Flanders on a cartoon by a Lombard artist (Bramantino?). With a few other copies from the early 1500s, the tapestry played an important role in spreading knowledge of Leonardo’s art in France. The exhibition will feature two Tapestries of the Months by Bramantino and, in addition, portraits of the two patrons of the Vatican tapestry.

EMILIO VEDOVA: IMAGES IN TIME 1936-2006
ROYAL PALACE
november 2019 - february 2020
curated by Germano Celant with Fabrizio Gazzarri

“Emilio Vedova: Images in Time 1936-2006” presents, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, the artist’s creative path, starting from the beginnings, coinciding with the production of a series of drawings of Venetian architecture, where graphics and sign lead to a scratchy and energetic landscape, anticipatory of a formless doing, and arriving at the selection of his last works, before his death.

VAN CLEEF & ARPELS: TIME, NATURE, LOVE
ROYAL PALACE.
november 2019 - march 2020
curated by Alba Cappellieri

This is the first Italian exhibition to present the extraordinary jewelry, watches and precious objects created by Van Cleef & Arpels from its founding in Paris in 1906 to the present. The exhibition celebrates the unique ability of jewelry to unite eternity and ephemerality, love and craftsmanship, beauty and art. The exhibition is divided into three sections: time, nature, and love. This exhibition was conceived taking its cue from Italo Calvino’s American Lessons.

FEDERICO FELLINI
ROYAL PALACE
december 2019 - february 2020
curated by Vincenzo Mollica and Alessandro Nicosia

On the occasion of the centenary of Federico Fellini’s birth, it is intended to offer new generations the chain of all his works by reliving the texts, scenes, and characters of his films and thus involving him beyond individual memories in an epochal memory. All this through his original drawings, stage costumes, film objects, scripts, photographs, with video installations by RAI and Istituto Luce. This is the first major exhibition dedicated to the director held in Milan.

STUDIO MUSEUM FRANCESCO MESSINA
TERRA CRUDA - TERRA MIGAKI DESIGN
STUDIO MUSEUM FRANCESCO MESSINA
april 8 - april 14, 2019

Matter, earth, innovation for green designers, self-production and enhancement of ancient techniques present in the knowledge of excellent magister artis: these are the key words of a corollary of events that starting with an international design competition will be enriched by demonstration events, workshops, laboratories, lectures, exhibitions and displays. All events spring from an intent of cultural exchange between the Western and Japanese worlds that has already been underway for some years.

WITH EXTRAORDINARY TRANSPORTATION. THE GREAT ITALIAN SHOULDER MACHINES UNESCO HERITAGE
FRANCESCO MESSINA STUDIO MUSEUM
november 2019 - january 2020
curated by Patrizia Giancotti

A little girl soaring into the sky in Palmi, a shining machine like the heart of Santa Rosa in Viterbo, eight dancing towers penetrating the sky in Nola. Cohesion, faith, belonging: the great Italian shoulder-mounted machines, complex votive constructions, expressions of communities, embody all this and have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The installation inside the Francesco Messina Museum Studio physically expresses these values, concretizing bonds, weaving connections, emphasizing links.

ANTICIPATIONS 2020

ROBOT

MUDEC
february 26 - june 28, 2020

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the history of robots from the earliest automatons to the latest discoveries in bio-robotics. The exhibition path starts from ancient mechanical devices that simulate human behavior and movement to provide a historical-scientific overview that embraces cross-cutting themes and offers a complex view of the relationship between human beings and their technological duality, the Robot.

MARIA LAI

MUSEUM OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
spring 2020

On the occasion of the Palimpsest centered on women’s creativity, the Museo del Novecento is dedicating a major exhibition to one of the most fascinating contemporary artists that reconstructs her work.

TANIA BRUGUERA

PAC
march - june 2020

curated by Diego Sileo

First solo exhibition in Italy by Tania Bruguera (1968 Havana) after her important projects in 2018 at MoMA New York and Tate London. An interdisciplinary artist never too distant from activism and interested in investigating the relationships between society and media, Bruguera challenges the strong powers of our contemporary times through her often provocative works. For the PAC, the artist will create a new performance.

GEORGES DE LA TOUR. THE EUROPE OF LIGHT

ROYAL PALACE.
february 7, 2020 - june 7, 2020
curated by Francesca Cappelletti

The exhibition aims to investigate the extraordinary paintings of Georges de La Tour, emphasizing his relationship with European painting of the time. Special emphasis will be placed on the famous “light impressions” that, typical of the French artist, harmoniously dialogue with the works of other 17th-century artists such as Frans Hals, Paulus Bor and Trophime Bigot.

DIVINE AVANT-GARDES. WOMEN IN THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE

ROYAL PALACE.
october 2020 - january 2021
curated by Evgenia Petrova and Joseph Kiblitsky

Women pillars of the great avant-garde and modernity of the 20th century. Women depicted and women painters, the importance of women in Russian culture, women protagonists of an extraordinary cultural atmosphere

REALISMS.

ROYAL PALACE
october 2020 - february 2021
curated by Gabriella Belli and Valerio Terraroli

More than 30 years after the Milan exhibition of Italian painting of the 1920s and 1930s, under the title of Magical Realism, an innovative, rich and articulate exhibition relating to the phenomenon of Realisms in European and U.S. painting between 1920 and 1930 will open at the Royal Palace in 2020 with about 80 paintings, some sculptures, drawings and documentary material.

POP ART

ROYAL PALACE
october 2020 - february 2021
curated by Gianni Mercurio

For the first time in Milan, an exhibition is being presented on Pop Art, the movement that gave a decisive impulse to the overcoming of the “modern” and has permeated the past century from the avant-garde to contemporary times. The exhibition will be a great opportunity to retrace the history of this extraordinary artistic movement, whose protagonists include the best known and most appreciated artists of the new American and international scene-Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, to name but a few. Beginning with the "artistic premises" of the Pop movement, with the works of Duchamp, De Chirico, Man Ray, etc., the exhibition will then focus on American artists and the heroic period of Pop Art, from the late 1950s through the 1960s when, in the United States, elements of everyday life entered painting massively and the

Milan, here are all the 2019-2020 exhibitions: from Ingres to Leonardo da Vinci, from Monet and van Gogh to Antonello da Messina

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