Venice, Vicenza, Milan, Mantua and Florence: these are the destinations we suggest you add to your calendar in view of the 2024 holidays. A series of must-see exhibitions are waiting for you

MARINA APOLLONIO AND JULIE MEHRETU IN VENICE
The first stop on our itinerary that epitomizes major exhibitions is Venice, where the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Palazzo Grassi host two exhibitions dedicated to two contemporary artists. In Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, once home to the famous American patroness, the spotlight shines on the tireless oeuvre of Marina Apollonio, one of the key figures of kinetic and Optical art. Among the promoters of Programmed art, Apollonio analyses forms and materials by applying a rigorous criterion and moving diagonally along the boundaries that separate painting, drawing, sculpture and moving installations. The hundred or so works selected by curator Marianna Gelussi are a vivid testament to this approach and offer the public the opportunity to retrace the long career of the artist, born in Trieste, but Venetian by adoption.
On the opposite bank of the Grand Canal, Palazzo Grassi, home of the Pinault Collection, hosts the largest European exhibition ever dedicated to Julie Mehretu, curated by Caroline Bourgeois. Over fifty paintings and prints made by the artist over the last twenty-five years are displayed alongside more recent works: the result is a total immersion in Mehretu’s artistic philosophy, made even more engaging by the dialogue established with the works of Nairy Baghramian, Huma Bhabha, Tacita Dean, David Hammons, Robin Coste Lewis, Paul Pfeiffer and Jessica Rankin, Mehretu’s colleagues and friends. The ensemble evoked by the title is full, therefore, of living matter, which allows us to identify the thematic and conceptual lines around which the artist’s work takes shape.

INFO
Marina Apollonio. Beyond the Circle
until 3 March 2025
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM COLLECTION
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni
Dorsoduro 701, Venice
https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/en/

Julie Mehretu. Ensemble
until 6 January 2025
PALAZZO GRASSI
Campo San Samuele 3231, Venice
https://www.pinaultcollection.com/palazzograssi/en

Captions:

Marina Apollonio: Beyond the Circle, installation view, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 2024 © Photo Matteo De Fina

Julie Mehretu​, TRANSpaintings, 2023-2024, Courtesy of the artist and White Cube. Installation view, Julie Mehretu. Ensemble, 2024, Palazzo Grassi, Venice. Photo Marco Cappelletti © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

LEONARDO DA VINCI, JACOPO BASSANO AND GIANANDREA GAZZOLA IN VICENZA
After Caravaggio, Van Dyck and Sassolino, this year the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza once again hosts a three-voice dialogue between three artists from different eras. This time the spotlight is on Leonardo da Vinci’s studies and drawings, on the altarpiece with The Flood of the Colmeda by Jacopo Bassano and on Gianandrea Gazzola’s site-specific installation as part of the exhibition, which was conceived and sponsored by the Municipality of Vicenza with the co-organisation of Intesa Sanpaolo and the curatorship of Guido Beltramini. The common thread that runs through the centuries and creates a connection between the works is the element of water as an emblem of the natural world and a fundamental resource for existence.

INFO
Three Masterpieces in Vicenza. Leonardo da Vinci, Jacopo Bassano, Gianandrea Gazzola
from 6 December 2024 to 9 March 2025
BASILICA PALLADIANA
Piazza dei Signori, Vicenza
https://www.mostreinbasilica.it/it/

Captions:

Leonardo da Vinci, Studies on percussion, range of motion, simple and compound motion, Codex Atlanticus, folio 767 recto. Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan

Jacopo Bassano, Saints Anthony and Crescentius interceding with the Virgin for the victims of the Colmeda River flood. Oil on canvas, 176 x 115 cm. Feltre, Parish of Santa Maria degli Angeli

Gianandrea Gazzola, Untitled, water and light, site-specific installation

PABLO PICASSO IN MILAN AND MANTUA
All eyes are on Pablo Picasso and his status as a “foreigner” in France thanks to the exhibition staged at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, curated by Annie Cohen-Solal and Cécile Debray. Over ninety works describe the complex relationship between the Spanish artist and the country in which he built his career, suggesting an effective key for analysing Picasso’s artistic philosophy. Annie Cohen-Solal is also the curator of the exhibition that establishes a dialogue between the work of the artist and the frescoes by Giulio Romano in the setting of Palazzo Te in Mantua. In this case, the common thread is poetry, a tool of “salvation” adopted by Picasso to cope with the difficulties arising from his status as a “foreigner”.

INFO
Picasso the Foreigner
until 2 February 2025
PALAZZO REALE
Piazza del Duomo 12, Milan
https://www.palazzorealemilano.it/en/mostre/foreigner

Picasso at Palazzo Te. Poetry and Salvation
until 6 January 2025
PALAZZO TE
Viale Te 13, Mantua
https://www.centropalazzote.it/en/fondazione-palazzo-te/

UGO MULAS AND JEAN TINGUELY IN MILAN
The bond between Ugo Mulas and Milan is one of the focal points of the exhibition that Palazzo Reale dedicates to the unforgettable photographer. Curated by Denis Curti and Alberto Salvadori, the monographic exhibition takes stock of Mulas’s photographic career by bringing together over two hundred and fifty shots that encompass the subjects and themes dear to the author. A journey through images that goes beyond the confines of Palazzo Reale and even lands in various Milanese cultural institutions thanks to the Ugo Mulas in città project.
At Pirelli HangarBicocca, the protagonist is Jean Tinguely, subject of the largest retrospective organized in Italy since the artist’s death. Curated by Camille Morineau, Lucia Pesapane and Vicente Todolí with Fiammetta Griccioli, the exhibition augments the cultural events designed to celebrate the centenary of Tinguely’s birth, in 1925. More than thirty works fill the spaces of the Navate, placing the emphasis on the experimental approach adopted by the artist and demonstrated by the use of waste objects and welded gears to give shape to sound and motorized machines. There is no shortage of references to the relationship between Tinguely and Milan, the city that hosted (in 1970) the iconic performance-show La Vittoria, staged in front of the Duomo.

INFO
Ugo Mulas. The process of photography
until 2 February 2025
PALAZZO REALE
Piazza del Duomo 12, Milan
https://www.palazzorealemilano.it/

Jean Tinguely
until 2 February 2025
PIRELLI HANGARBICOCCA
Via Chiese 2, Milan
https://pirellihangarbicocca.org/

Captions:

Ugo Mulas, Giulio Castelli, 1967. Fotografie Ugo Mulas © Eredi Ugo Mulas. All rights reserved. Courtesy Archivio Ugo Mulas, Milano – Galleria Lia Rumma, Milano/Napoli

Jean Tinguely, exhibition view, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2024. Foreground: Mercédès, 1991. Background: Vive Marcel Duchamp, 1991. Private collection, Switzerland. Courtesy Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Jean Tinguely: © SIAE, 2024. Photo Agostino Osio

HELEN FRANKENTHALER IN FLORENCE
There is time until 26 January 2025 to visit the Florentine exhibition dedicated to Helen Frankenthaler – the most complete one ever held in Italy. Curated by Douglas Dreishpoon and hosted by Palazzo Strozzi, it includes a series of works created between 1953 and 2002, in addition to works by colleagues Jackson Pollock, Morris Louis, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Anthony Caro and Anne Truitt. The aim is to highlight the innovative nature of Helen Frankenthaler’s painting through the filter of the affinities and bonds of friendship that accompanied her human and creative journey. A can’t-miss opportunity to admire the work of one of the most revolutionary artists of the last century.

INFO
Helen Frankenthaler. Painting without rules
until 26 January 2025
PALAZZO STROZZI
Piazza Strozzi, Florence
https://www.palazzostrozzi.org/

Text by Arianna Testino

Cover photo: Picasso at Palazzo Te. Poetry and Salvation, installation view, Palazzo Te, Mantua 2024 © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2024. Photo Gian Maria Pontiroli