All the exhibitions not to be missed in Milan this summer

Pino Pascali's short but intense career is the focus of the retrospective curated by Mark Godfrey at Fondazione Prada through Sept. 23. The exhibition chronicles the innovative character of his work, bearing witness to how relevant it still is, and following four thematic cores: the first focusing on the artist's approach to the making of his exhibitions between 1965 and 1968, the second dedicated to the interventions presented by Pascali in the group exhibitions in which he participated in those same years. The third and fourth sections, on the other hand, delve respectively into the discourse of the interaction between the artist and his works-through the photographs of Claudio Abate, Andrea Taverna and Ugo Mulas-and the use of natural and industrial materials in his production.

From June 29 to Sept. 15, the rooms of the PAC in Milan will host the works of Milanese artist Liliana Moro. The exhibition Andante con Moto is a project co-produced with Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein and in collaboration with Magazzino Italian Art in New York. Works from the 1980s to the present day are presented, with a specific focus on the aspect of sound, fundamental to Moro's work. The listening mode is conceived by the artist as a possibility of intellectual, emotional and physical participation in her work in the search for an active dialogue with the viewer.

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of artist and designer Roberto Sambonet, Triennale Milano from May 17 to September 8 is hosting the largest retrospective ever dedicated to the Italian designer's multifaceted activity. Roberto Sambonet. The Theory of Form, curated by Enrico Morteo and with installation design by Daniele Ledda, XyComm, presents a careful and wide selection of mostly unpublished objects, drawings, paintings and documents from the artist's archive. A unique opportunity to discover the history and works of another of the great Italian designers, in the path dedicated to the great names in art and design of the Milanese institution.

From Jamaica to New York, in his career Nari Ward has grappled with social and political issues, from memory, to identity, to the idea of community, creating works with everyday reclaimed materials that recall places and cultures of his own experience. Pirelli HangarBicocca for the first time presents a selection of works that investigates the artist's research by proposing a focus on performance, sound, and projects centered on collaboration. Curated by Roberta Tenconi and Lucia Aspesi, Nari Ward. Ground Break is an invitation to listen to the artist's narrative that is both personal and open to contemporary urgencies.

Photographs by Italian photojournalist Gabriele Micalizzi are featured in the exhibition Legacy. Matter-History-Identity, as part of the 7th edition of the Brescia Photo Festival. At the center of the exhibition project is a reflection on the evolution of photographic language from the past to contemporary times, considering in particular the influence that the medium has on the practice of photography, from film to digital. Among the works presented are also experiments with photographic fresco, a procedure inspired by the ancient fresco technique, brought back to contemporary times by Micalizzi, to create photographic impressions directly on walls through the use of a photosensitive emulsion.

Opened on April 10, 2024, to run concurrently with Milan Art Week, La Casa Dentro is the exhibition conceived by Formafantasma designers around the idea of home, told as a physical space, but also as a place that hosts human relationships, elements linked to everyone's identity and also to collective memory. The second floor of the Foundation hosts a selection of unpublished works, from whose dialogue a movement of challenge is generated toward the concept of canon and toward Modernist ideology, overcoming rationality as a value and welcoming decorative elements more related to the emotional and sentimental sphere.

Alex Da Corte explores the nuances of contemporary life in his works, transforming them into spatial works in which even immaterial elements find their translation into objects, shapes, and colors. Gió Marconi Gallery presents the artist's solo show, through July 20, entitled World Leader Pretend, the first in Italy after his participation in the 2019 Venice Biennale. The paintings, sculptures and installations on display derive their raison d'être from a conversation that took place on May 5, 1821 between Napoleon and his friend and valet Louis Joseph Narcisse Marchand, published in 1952 in French by Jean Bourguignon and later translated by Proctor Jones and Jean Tulard. 

The gallery of 10 Corso Como hosts a unique exhibition project, the first in Italy, dedicated to Yohji Yamamoto. Through the complexity of his clothes, the designer has reworked Japan's sartorial tradition, returning an innovative and contemporary vision from the late 1970s to the present day. The Milan exhibition, curated by Alessio de' Navasques, brings together iconic garments from runway, recent and future collections, and is a special opportunity to see clothes that are true works of art.

Following the extraordinary exhibition dedicated to Piero della Francesca's Polittico Agostiniano, Museo Poldi Pezzoli from June 13 hosts the photographs of three revolutionary photographers, Eadweard Muybridge, Harold Edgerton and Berenice Abbott, from the collection of Bank of America. The curatorial discourse focuses on the use of photography as a tool for scientific investigation, in the representation of light and movement. From scientific phenomena to works of art, the work of these three photographers made the art-science combo the starting point for the development of new technologies and the discovery of new creative horizons.

The Milanese venue of the Istituto Svizzero until June 29 hosts the exhibition NYX, the Greek word for night, which plays an important role in the dialogue between Maude Léonard-Contant and Monia Ben Hamouda as the goddess Nyx, goddess of night and chaos. The two artists, coming from different backgrounds, share a multiculturalism that, in their practice, is translated by following the exploration of the complexities and possibilities of language and memory as a way of expression of what is inexpressible and untranslatable

Moira Ricci and Franco Vaccari are the two photographers to whom the summer programming at MUFOCO in Cinisello Balsamo has been dedicated starting May 26. The exhibition MOIRA RICCI 20.12.53 - 10.08.04 presents the series with the same title, which originates from a selection of the artist's family photographs belonging to different decades, in which her digital intervention is transformed into a gesture of care toward herself and her own sensitivity to a dramatic event in her life. Five photographs and six artist's books by Franco Vaccari, acquired by the institution as part of Photography Strategy 2023, will be exhibited in the exhibition Photomatic d'Italia 1973-1974, to narrate the artist's research work, and his role in the international scene of the 1960s and 1970s.

Fondazione Elpis, through July 7, is hosting a solo exhibition by Cypriot-born artist Theodoulos Polyviou, entitled A Palace in Exile. This is the third installment of Transmundane Economies, a project pursued by Polyviou that examines the concept of “oikonomia”-as “domestic management”-and makes use of digital technologies and virtual processing to reconstruct and fill gaps within Cyprus' cultural heritage. In the context of the Mediterranean island's history, the exhibition in Milan extends the discourse to the influence of the Cypriot Church on the economic and political type administration of society.

A not-to-be-missed event for photography enthusiasts: more than one hundred and sixty winning photographs from the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards are on display at the Carlo Maria Martini Museo Diocesano in Milan from June 6 until September 29. Fifty-two photographers reflecting on contemporary issues, including French photographer Juliette Pavy, awarded Photographer of the Year - with her project piralkampagnen: Forced Contraception and Unintended Sterilization of Greenlandic Women.

The Gallerie d'Italia in Milan's Piazza della Scala presents a new exhibition itinerary for an important group of works by Alighiero Boetti, from the Luigi and Peppino Agrati Collection, donated to Intesa San Paolo in 2018, with its approximately five hundred works signed by the most important artists of the 20th century. The new exhibition, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, includes a selection of works by Alighiero Boetti such as four tapestries from the I VEDENTI series, the 1979 Self-Portrait, and the 1980 watercolors Da uno a dieci.

The Drawing Hall is a space that aims to explore the role of drawing in the contemporary art world. Until June 22 it is hosting Oscar Giaconia's solo exhibition, The Pig Pit, curated by Elena Forin. On this occasion, the artist has completely transformed the gallery space into a sort of bunker in which to display his work, creating an anomalous environment, and one in which visitors' ability to orient themselves is diminished in order to become completely immersed in the work. The project is accompanied by a documentary directed by Marco Marcassoli, and enriched by a ventriloquist track by Antonio Rezza.

APALAZZOGALLERY presents until Sept. 22 the exhibition of Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, entitled IF THESE ARE THE THINGS. This is the artist's fourth solo show with the gallery, and brings together a rich core of new works, including charcoal drawings, photographs and a monumental installation composed of fragments of old painted plywood ceilings and wooden doors. His thinking on the themes of crisis and failure also finds expression here in materials that recall global transition and the workings of capitalist structures.

On the occasion of Thinking Like a Mountain, GAMeC's widespread cultural program for the biennium 2024-2025, the historic space of Palazzo della Ragione welcomes the work of British artist Sonia Boyce, through September 22. The site-specific project, conceived for the Sala delle Capriate, features work that recalls the artist's approach to the reality of Lombardy, focusing on traditional Italian folk songs. On display is a video installation composed of six “visual monuments,” born from the reworking of footage shot in collaboration with a group of students from the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “Gaetano Donizetti” in Bergamo.

The new Milan location of Officine Saffi hosts until July 31 the exhibition (un)Known Territories, which brings together the finalist works of the fifth edition of the Officine Saffi Award initiative, the biennial international prize dedicated to contemporary ceramics, this year devoted to the broad theme of territory, in the infinite meanings that this concept carries. Territory is considered as physical matter in continuous transformation, as a place of discovery, in relation to personal experiences, cultures and collectivity. The exhibition presents to the public the works of the thirty-two artists selected by the jury of experts involved in the initiative.