15 must-see exhibitions in Italy this month

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is hosting Silent Studio, an exhibition by Dutch artist Mark Manders from October 31, 2024, to March 16, 2025. The exhibition presents works from the 1990s to the present, exploring the idea of self-portraiture as “building,” where sculptures and installations symbolize visual words. The works, made of materials such as bronze and clay, create a space that reflects transience and vulnerability. The exhibition includes more than twenty works in an immersive architecture that recreates the artist's studio environment.

10 Corso Como presents an extensive exhibition by American artist Talia Chetrit, who intensely explores themes of sexuality, power and family relationships through photography. The works range between self-portraits, family scenes, still lifes and urban photos, mixing intimacy and distance. Chetrit challenges the canons of femininity and social conventions as she highlights the complexity of human relationships, the ambiguity of representation and the construction of identity in her poetic and provocative shots.

Winner of the Termoli Prize 2023, Irene Fenara returns to MACTE Termoli this time with a solo exhibition entitled The good shadows, from October 18, 2024 to January 25, 2025. Shots stolen from surveillance circuit cameras around the world are the starting point for creating new abstract images of natural landscapes, exploring the boundary between visibility and invisibility. The exhibition includes video installations and never-before-seen prints, as well as the series Self-Portraits.

Castello di Rivoli presents Mutual Aid - Art in Collaboration with Nature, curated by Francesco Manacorda and Marianna Vecellio. The exhibition explores the coexistence of humans and nature with works by more than twenty artists, including Vivian Suter, Agnes Danes, Giuseppe Penone and Tomás Saraceno, who were inspired by Kropotkin's concept of mutual support. Through installations and interactive works, the artists invite us to overcome the distinction between culture and nature, transforming the museum's Manica Lunga into a living environment that reflects on coexistence and sustainability.

The deconsecrated church of San Rocco in the heart of Bergamo's historic center is the exhibition venue chosen by SpazioVolta for Wilfredo Prieto's solo show entitled Troppo facile per l'incredulo vedere da lontano. The installations, in dialogue with architecture, stimulate a reflection on the dualism between sacred and profane. Works such as the one that gives the exhibition its title with a brain and a heart on the altar, and Egg and 8 Ball (2016) invoke themes of fragility and infinity, showing how contemporary art can enhance and regenerate historic spaces for the community.

The exhibition Il Surrealismo e l’Italia at the Fondazione Magnani Rocca celebrates one hundred years of Surrealism, exploring its influence on the Italian scene. With more than one hundred and fifty works by artists such as Dalí, Magritte, Miró, Baj and de Chirico, the exhibition is divided into two chapters: the first on international Surrealism and its arrival in Italy, the second on its Italian interpretations. The exhibition reflects on how Surrealism liberated the unconscious, influencing art and the perception of reality to this day.

Palazzo Strozzi hosts the largest exhibition dedicated to Helen Frankenthaler in Italy, entitled Painting without rules. The exhibition, curated by Douglas Dreishpoon, puts Frankenthaler's works, including canvases and sculptures, in dialogue with those of contemporary artists such as Pollock and Rothko, from 1953 to 2002. The exhibition celebrates her innovative soak-stain technique, which revolutionized modern painting, highlighting her ability to combine abstraction and poetry. Through loans from major museums, Frankenthaler's work is explored, offering a comprehensive view of his creative practice.

The exhibition Post Scriptum. A Museum Forgotten in Memory spans the museum's more than ten thousand square meters and features works by some thirty artists, including Tolia Astakhishvili, Maurizio Altieri, Beatrice Bonino, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. This exhibition mirrors the previous 2020 exhibition titled Editorial and reflects a five-year journey of the museum under the direction of Luca Lo Pinto, which involved more than two hundred and fifty artists and investigated various art forms, challenging exhibition conventions through different thematic sections.

The exhibition Cutting Clouds. Cutting Clouds at the Madre Museum in Naples, curated by Marta Ferrara and Marta Wróblewska, explores the ephemeral and impermanent through installations, workshops and performance events. The artworks, inspired by George Brecht's Cloud Scissors, evoke an aesthetic experience based on randomness and imagination. The featured artists, including Yoko Ono, Eva Marisaldi, Dieter Roth, and Cesare Pietroiusti,  contributed works spanning multiple media: site-specific installations, paintings, sculptures, and performances.

Antonio Dalle Nogare Foundation in Bolzano is hosting the exhibition Emilio Prini - Typewriter Drawings Bologna/München/Rome - 1970/1971 this winter. Produced in collaboration with the Emilio Prini Archive, it features works on paper inspired by exhibitions in Bologna, Munich and Rome. Prini explores concepts such as the value of goods, the production cycle and the use of technology, documenting his research on paper with a typewriter, as in a form of Arte Povera. Moreover, the project constitutes the start of an ongoing research and cataloging effort curated by the Emilio Prini Archive.

The Bonollo Foundation, guided by collectors Sandra and Giancarlo Bonollo in Thiene, is located in the former Collegio delle Suore Dimesse. Established to share twenty-five years of artistic research, this institution serves as a cultural crossroads, enhancing contemporary talent. The exhibition Lessico Famigliare, curated by Chiara Nuzzi, reflects on the themes of memory and identity through the works of ten artists, exploring universal themes such as intimacy and collectivity, and creating an emotional dialogue between art and viewer.

PAC Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea presents METAL PANIC, the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Marcello Maloberti, a tribute to Milan, the city that inspired his artistic practice. Curated by Diego Sileo, the exhibition is articulated as an artist's book, exploring themes such as the sacredness of the everyday and urban change through works from the 1990s to the present. The exhibition includes installations, performances, and collages, with a neo-realist approach that fuses art and life in an ever-evolving artistic construction site.

The exhibition Out of the Grid. Italian zine 1978-2006 at XNL Piacenza explores the Italian self-publishing scene between 1978 and 2006, between underground publishing and early blogs. It hosts fanzines, original prints, facsimiles and technical materials, highlighting innovations in alternative media and the use of different formats (floppy disks, vinyls, faxes, blogs). Each title reflects on social and political issues related to freedom of expression and the youth context. On the program, talks and an interactive zone for in-depth discussions.

PALAZZOIRREALE, is a project in which contemporary art meets the territory and tradition of the Bosca winery, with the intention of creating a collection for the heritage of Monferrato. The path, enriched by a photographic archive, hosts experimental artists in dialogue with the buildings once, and partially still, home to the winery. The first appointment is dedicated to the production of Patrick Tuttofuoco, from 2000 to the present, and to the theme of time, explored through symbolic works such as Shape shifting (2024), a light sculpture representing two intertwined arms, visible from the village of Canelli and conceived as a symbol of connection with the territory.

The Drawing Hall reopened on October 4 with Paradoxes of Abundance, an exhibition by Marzia Migliora curated by Alberto Fiz, open until November 17, 2024. Drawing, a central medium of research, engages the public in a multisensory experience. The centerpiece of the exhibition is The Spectre of Malthus (2020), a VR video installation that explores the ecological costs of progress. The exhibition also includes works from the Paradoxes of Abundance series, reflecting on the food industry and its social and economic impact.