The must-see exhibitions and events in July


Davide Benati, Taccuino di Kthmandu, watercolor on paper, 1977. Ph. Fabio Fantini

Rimini: “Biennale Disegno Rimini”
Twelve different exhibitions enliven the fourth edition of the Biennale Disegno Rimini, which this year goes on show with the theme “Return to travel. From the Grand Tour to science fiction”. After the house, the table, the thoughts, the papers and the projects accumulated during the pandemic, we once again returned to reflect on the journey. The thousand drawings on display span from the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid and from the Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain de Picardie, ranging from the travel notebooks of Felice Giani to those of Mattotti; from Piranesi's engravings to Thayaht's projects; but also from important private collections such as the Studiolo Rivi with masters of the fifties and sixties such as Morandi, Fontana and Fautrier; from the Carteles of Cuban cinema to the drawings of The Rose of Bagdad at the Cantiere Contemporaneo. Thus, in the main places of the city, a journey through the images unfolds which reveals Rimini's vocation for hospitality.

Where: various location
When: until August 28th





Milano: “EL SEED. Waves Only Exist Because the Wind Blows”
Waves Only Exist Because the Wind Blows is the title of the new work of art on a monumental scale by eL Seed which can be admired on the external walls of the "Cube" of Pirelli HangarBicocca, for a surface total of 1000 m2. eL Seed, a contemporary artist whose practice includes both painting and sculpture, uses the power of language in his murals to establish connections and evoke ideas of unity and cohesion, celebrating the beauty and particularity of the cultural heritage of different countries. Waves Only Exist Because the Wind Blows celebrates the common journey and the need to belong to a place. The shape of a wave depicts the theme of coming and going, the work amplifies its meaning to everyone and talks about the collective memories of each of us and the layers of our identity. The project is curated by Cedar Lewisohn, author of several publications on art in public spaces and on Street Art.

Where: Pirelli HangarBicocca
When: permanent work, free inauguration on 3 July upon reservation





Milano: “The photographic archive of Studio Ballo & Ballo at the Sforzesco Castle”
In the second half of the twentieth century, the history of design has been made also by the images that brought it to the pages of magazines and catalogs all over the world: many of these were taken by the photographic studio Ballo & Ballo, founded by Mariarosa Toscani Ballo together with her husband Aldo Ballo in 1957. The studio archive consists of 184,203 photographs, which were donated to the Civic Photographic Archive of the Sforza Castle which with this exhibition becomes the permanent home of the collection. Among the studio's clients there have been world-famous architects and designers and some of the companies that have brought the icons of Italian design all over the world; many of the photographs taken by the studio have entered the collective imagination and are still published today as reference images.

Where: Castello Sforzesco
When: until September 30th





Gorizia: “Italy Sixties. Art, fashion and design. From Boom to Pop”
An exhibition that recounts an effervescent and controversial decade during which, over complex social and political changes, creative drives, new approaches and new visions were overwritten and have therefore forever changed the ways of living, living, working, dressing, loving and manage their free time. A 1965 Ferrari 275 gtb will welcome visitors, flanked by a Lamborghini Miura: the curators - Carla Cerutti for design, Enrico Minio Capucci and Raffaella Sgubin for fashion and Lorenzo Michelli for visual arts - have chosen to tell the story of the decade by underlining the similarities of genres, opening up to design and fashion above all, but also to art.

Where: Palazzo Attems Petzenstein
When: until October 27th





Nuoro: “Nairy Baghramian. Pratza and domo. A semiotic house never built”
Nairy Baghramian received the Nivola Prize for sculpture in 2023 and this year signs the exhibition project for the Sardinian museum which collects the works of one of the most important Italian sculptors of the twentieth century. The exhibition includes works by artists and designers Nairy Baghramian, Phyllida Barlow, Nicolas Hsiung, Janette Laverrière, Rosemary Mayer, Win McCarthy, Julie Mehretu, Oscar Murillo, Paulina Olowska, Monika Sosnowska, Mariantonia Urru.
Baghramian's title "Pratza 'e domo" (literally "house square") takes up the expression that in Sardinia designates the space in front of a house, often equipped with a bench or chair on which it is possible to rest; an area of ​​transition that is both private and public, individual and collective. This space is linked to the idea of ​​the "semiotic house never built", a project created by Baghramian in 2008 together with Janette Laverrière and Henrik Olesen. The project for the Nivola Museum combines the artist's interest in the boundaries between public and private space, external and internal, for the border between art and design, between aesthetic dimension and ornamental dimension, and for the unfinished and the unfinished, the unrealized.

Where: Museo Nivola
Whem: until November 3rd





Macerata: “Vis-à-vis. Modern and contemporary portraits”
This reflection on eighteenth-century and contemporary portraiture, curated by Elsa Barbieri, Massimo Francucci and Giuliana Pascucci, hosts over 60 works that combine masters of the past and artists of the present, Italian and international: eighteenth-century authors - Pier Leone Ghezzi, Sebastiano Ceccarini, Carlo Magini -, contemporary artists - Evgeny Antufiev, Eduardo Arroyo, Matthew Attard, Luigi Bartolini, Joseph Beuys, Marco Cingolani, Michelangelo Consani, Fabrizio Cotognini, Enzo Cucchi, Thomas De Falco, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Diango Hernández, Leiko Ikemura, Jiri Kolar , Mark Manders, Annette Messager, Fulvio Morella, Roman Opalka, Laura Paoletti, Vettor Pisani, Carol Rama, David Reimondo, Klaus Rinke, Kiki Smith -, together with the museum's prestigious collections, in particular 20th century authors including Nanda Vigo, Osvaldo Licini, Aligi Sassu.

Where: Musei Civici Palazzo Buonaccorsi
When: until January12th, 2025



Oscar Graubner, Margaret Bourke-White in cima al Chrysler Building. New York City, 1932 ca. Margaret Bourke-White/The LIFE Picture Collection


Torino: “Margaret Bourke-White. Works 1930-1960”
The exhibition features a great master of twentieth-century photography, the American Margaret Bourke-White, with around 150 photographs that outline a journey, curated by Monica Poggi, which tells of the work, the extraordinary life, the very high quality of shots by Bourke-White, capable of recounting the complex human experience on the pages of widely distributed magazines, overcoming barriers and gender boundaries with determination. The transformations of the world, the heart of Bourke-White's research, find their place on the cover of the first issue of the legendary LIFE magazine, can be read in his iconic portraits of Stalin and Gandhi, in the reports on American industry, in the reports created during the Second War world in the Soviet Union, North Africa, Italy and Germany, where he documents the entry of US troops into Berlin and the horrors of the concentration camps.

Where: CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la fotografia
When: until October 6th



Luca De Leva, installation view, 2023


Genova: “The Morbid Palace”
Pinksummer's summer collective entitled The Morbid Palace is not held in the gallery, but in a space that has remained secret and abandoned. The room, curious and imposing, is located inside a 13th century building in the center of the city. The exhibition, being a gallery collective - although new works produced for the occasion will also be presented and an inaugural performance by Georgina Starr, followed by a second performance by Luca De Leva - constitutes an opportunity to glimpse a typical attitude that it unites the artists represented who, although they all move from a pessimistic perspective, never resolve it into an intimate contemplation closed in their own affections, but rather transform it into a stimulus, an impulse for an active and combative life of the present, committed. On display works by: Mariana Castillo Deball, Plamen Dejanoff, Luca De Leva, Mark Dion, Peter Fend, Invernomuto, Koo Jeong A, Tobias Putrih, Jorge Queiroz, Tomás Saraceno, Bojan Šarčević, Georgina Starr, Luca Trevisani, Cesare Viel.

Where: Ex Chiesa dell’Angelo Custode
When: until September 27th