September 6, 2023

The must-see exhibitions in Florence

All the must-see events

All the must-see art events in Florence this spring:

ANISH KAPOOR (7 October 2023 - 4 February 2024)

A major new exhibition conceived and realised with Anish Kapoor, the celebrated master who revolutionised the idea of sculpture in contemporary art at Palazzo Strozzi. It is a journey through monumental installations, intimate environments and provocative forms, creating an engaging dialogue with the architecture and the public of Palazzo Strozzi.

MELMA (until 8 October)

Nico Vascellari's exhibition includes a selection of previously unseen works, specially conceived for this occasion and created with different media, such as video, sculpture, collage, installation and sound. A broad overview of Vascellari's work focusing on the relationship between man and nature, existence and transcendence. Melma also unfolds in October in Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio and the Museo Novecento, places that host a series of works by the artist.

PEZZI DI PACE (until 28 January 2024)

Pieces of Peace is the site-specific installation created by Felice Limosani for the courtyard of Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, in the historical heart of Florence. A project visible to the public from 22 September 2023 to 28 January 2024. Felice Limosani, an artist who makes multidisciplinary training his strength, has conceived Pezzi di Pace (Pieces of Peace) commissioned by Roberto Casamonti, a work in which every conceptual and physical limit is thinned in favour of a visual harmony that integrates and makes all the elements involved dialogue and tune in; a metaphysical work that creates a magnetic relationship of total adhesion with the spectator, physically welcoming him into a solemn ideal canon. Pieces of Peace, in the author's intention, is a sign, it has nothing political about it, we are all called upon to contribute a piece to peace through culture, knowledge, education, kindness, mutual respect, values that are fundamental to its realisation, and art is a means. It is an ideal joining of heaven and earth, of the human dimension and the place of ideas; it is a desire to complete and balance opposites: us and the world, us and others.

DEPERO. CAVALCATA FANTASTICA (28 September - 28 January 2024)

A monographic exhibition at Palazzo Medici Riccardi dedicated to the 20th century master Fortunato Depero, which is part of the Florence Art Week and highlights the bond between the artist and the Florentine territory through a collection of masterpieces. These include two splendid tapestries: Cavalcata Fantastica and Due Maschere Tropicali. Also on show is Nitrito in velocità, a painting in the collections of the Museo Novecento in Florence.

CECILY BROWN AL MUSEO NOVECENTO

Nell’ambito della terza edizione della Florence Art Week (QUI tutti gli appuntamenti), le sale al piano terra del Museo Novecento tornano ad ospitare, dal 30 settembre prossimo e fino al 4 febbraio 2024, un focus sulla pittura contemporanea presentando le opere di una delle sue più talentuose esponenti, la pittrice inglese Cecily Brown. L’artista espone i suoi lavori per la prima volta a Firenze al Museo Novecento e in Palazzo Vecchio. Il titolo scelto per questa mostra fiorentina, “Temptations, Torments, Trials and Tribulations”, evoca la vita di ascesi, battaglie spirituali e privazioni del santo. In via del tutto eccezionale è esposta, nella cappella al piano terra del Museo Novecento, una versione su tavola di epoca rinascimentale delle Tentazioni di Sant’Antonio, di collezione privata che deriva dalla medesima incisione di Martin Schongauer.

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE AT THE MUSEO NOVECENTO

Through Feb. 14, the Museo Novecento pays tribute to one of the greatest exponents of twentieth-century photography, Robert Mapplethorpe, in a never-before-seen confrontation with shots by Wilhelm von Gloeden and a selection of photographs from the Alinari Archives. Forty years after the major 1983 exhibition at the Palazzo delle Cento Finestre, the images of the celebrated New York photographer are returning to the public eye with a project organized with the fundamental collaboration of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia. The exhibition is the museum's second major show dedicated to photography, a practice that has revolutionized art history since the 19th century.

LISETTA CARMI. SOUNDING STRONG (until October 8)

Humanity is at the center of the gaze of photographer Lisetta Carmi, to whom is dedicated the monographic exhibition Lisetta Carmi. Suonare Forte, through Oct. 8 at Villa Bardini, created under the curatorship of Giovanni Battista Martini, curator of the photographer's Archives. The exhibition, in its Florentine rearrangement, features two special in-depth unpublished sections dedicated to the 1966 flood and Florentine composer Luigi Dallapiccola. This is the first appointment of the Gallerie d'Italia - Turin project "La Grande Fotografia Italiana." On display are 180 photographs taken in the 20 years of her professional life between the 1960s and 1970s, offering a cross-section of Lisetta Carmi's most important photographic projects.

STEVE MCCURRY CHILDREN (until 8 October)

The new Steve McCurry Children exhibition by the famous American photographer opens to the public on 19 May at the Museo degli Innocenti. 100 photographs will be on display until 8 October to admire the first thematic exhibition in Italy dedicated to childhood by the most beloved photographer of all time, with some images never exhibited before in Europe, taken in almost fifty years of activity and portraying children from every corner of the world in scenes of everyday life. A tribute to an extraordinary period of life, a gallery of surprising portraits that recounts childhood in all its facets with a characteristic common to all, the gaze of innocence, and which is realised in the very place that symbolises childhood, the Istituto degli Innocenti.

GUCCI VISIONS

The new exhibition recounts the 102-year history of the Maison, in a tribute to the emblematic models, iconic elements and the talent of the Creative Directors and master craftsmen who have created them over the years. To open the itinerary, an illustrated chronology reveals itself to visitors as they walk down the various flights of stairs, tracing the history of the Maison through dates, events and key figures. Eight themed rooms are set up on the first and second floors of the building, which can be visited in any order, and each presents a particular aspect of the Maison's extraordinary history.

REALTÀ E SOGNO. DA FATTORI A GATTUSO (until 11 November)

From 13 September to 11 November, the Tornabuoni Arte gallery presents the exhibition Realtà e sogno. Da Fattori a Gattuso at its Florence venue, an all-round journey through 20th-century Italian figurative art, including still lifes, landscapes and human figures. From the expressive brushstrokes of Giovanni Boldini to the evocative compositions of Plinio Nomellini, from the dynamism of Gino Severini's forms to the enigmatic symbolism of Giorgio de Chirico, up to the evocative compositions of Giorgio Morandi, the exhibition invites the public to immerse themselves in the complexity of figurative art, proposing a new rereading of the works of these great 20th century masters, who brought fundamental innovations to the art scene and still influence the contemporary context today.

BANKSY ALLA CATTEDRALE DELL'IMMAGINE (until October 1)

Inside the monumental complex of Santo Stefano al Ponte, the world premiere of the unauthorised immersive digital exhibition dedicated to the subversive and satirical British writer Banksy. A true immersive story that unfolds through a skilful mix of images, sounds and music, a unicum between technology and space capable of realising the illusion of being transported on an incredible journey among the graffiti of the most irreverent and mysterious British writer. Extended until autumn.