June 1, 2023

The must-see exhibitions in Florence

From Maurizio Cattelan at Palazzo Strozzi to Giacometti and Fontana at Palazzo Vecchio: all the must-see events

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

REACHING FOR THE STARS. DA MAURIZIO CATTELAN A LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE (until June 18)

The exhibition Reaching for the Stars. From Maurizio Cattelan to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye features a selection of works by leading international contemporary artists, including Maurizio Cattelan, Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst, Lara Favaretto, Cindy Sherman, William Kentridge, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Josh Kline, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and Rudolf Stingel. Between painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video and performance, the project enhances the dialogue between Palazzo Strozzi and contemporary art by offering visitors a path to discover the great stars of global art in recent years along with a look at the younger generations.

GIACOMETTI – FONTANA. LA RICERCA DELL’ASSOLUTO (until June 4)

Alberto Giacometti and Lucio Fontana for the first time together within the monumental spaces of the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, particularly in the Sala delle Udienze and the Sala dei Gigli. An unprecedented museum project presents the ideal encounter and powerful dialogue between two giants of the 20th century, thanks to the extraordinary comparison of masterpieces arriving from Italy and abroad. For the first time, these two pillars of the 20th century, so distant in attitude and life, but equally linked by a reflection on truth in art, conquered through the experience of matter and at the same time of imagination, poised between the primordial dimension of time and the cosmological dimension of space, will be brought together. An exhibition in which the juxtaposed works acquire the evocative power of a dream, whose presence as in a dream must be interpreted by seeking answers far away in time and the future. At the Museo Novecento, also in the same period, we find the exhibition Lucio Fontana. L'origine du monde, which stems from the desire to explore some as yet little probed aspects of the work of the Italian-Argentine master.

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.

LUCA GIORDANO. MAESTRO BAROCCO (until 5 September)

Luca Giordano (1634-1705), one of the most virtuosic and prolific artists of the Italian Baroque, leaves in Florence, inside Palazzo Medici Riccardi, splendid testimonies of his work. These are the two vaults painted for the Galleria degli Specchi and the Biblioteca Riccardiana. By virtue of these extraordinary works, Florence and MUS.E want to give the painter special attention, thanks to the exhibition Luca Giordano. A Baroque Master in Florence, which is being held at Palazzo Medici Riccardi from 30 March to 5 September. The exhibition focuses on the relationship between the Neapolitan painter and the great Florentine families, who were ready to welcome the novelty of his painting and invest him with important executions. These included - in addition to the Medici grand dukes - the Del Rosso, Corsini, Sanminiati, Andreini, Martelli and Riccardi families, to whom the painter left important masterpieces on canvas and frescoes destined to mark the history of Baroque in the city.

GHIBERTI, VERROCCHIO E GIAMBOLOGNA: OSPITI ILLUSTRI DA ORSANMICHELE (until 4 September)

Until 4 September, the Bargello National Museum will host an exhibition of Lorenzo Ghiberti's St. John the Baptist, Andrea del Verrocchio's The Incredulity of St. Thomas and Giambologna's St. Luke, three of the greatest masterpieces of Renaissance bronze statuary, from the Orsanmichele Museum. The exhibition offers the public an opportunity to admire the display of three works from the famous Orsanmichele sculpture cycle, transferred to the ancient site of the Palazzo del Podestà during the temporary closure of the monumental complex (until 22 September) for extraordinary restoration work.

LA CATTEDRALE DI FIRENZE E I SUOI MONUMENTI NELLE IMMAGINI FOTOGRAFICHE DI ANTONIO BIAGIOTTI (until June 4)

Until to 4 June, the exhibition La Piazza, l'uomo, il fotografo by Antonio Biagiotti will be on display at the Libreria Brunelleschi of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. The exhibition organised by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, curated by Vincenzo Circosta and Giuseppe Giari, presents a selection of 26 black and white photographic images of Florence Cathedral and its monuments. The images on display are part of an extensive photographic project that Biagiotti started in 2018. Antonio Biagiotti took them with a view camera and a blackout cloth over his head, in the manner of the pioneers of photography. Biagiotti combines his commitment as a photographer, with exhibitions in Italy and Asia, with that of a popularizer of analogue photography, through courses, seminars and workshops.

GUARDARE E ASPETTARE: ENRIQUE MARTINEZ CELAYA SCULTURE SELEZIONATE 2005-2023 (until June 5)

At the Museo Marino Marini until June 5 we find Looking and Waiting: Enrique Martínez Celaya Selected Sculptures 2005-2023, the first exhibition in Italy by artist Enrique Martínez Celaya. Martínez Celaya has also experimented with sculpture, photography, video and writing, investigating through all these media the fundamental relationships between man and the world. His figurative language is rooted in nature, starting with common and familiar images such as trees, flowers, rivers, skies, the sea, as well as animals and human figures. The initial simplicity of this imagery, however, gives way to a deeper, opaque and unstable experience that lurks beneath the surface. On the occasion of the exhibition at the Marino Marini Museum, the Secci Gallery is hosting a solo exhibition of the artist's pictorial works from May 5 to July 29, 2023.

LIGHT, GAZE, PRESENCE (until 24 September)

An exhibition by Y.Z. Kami (Tehran, 1956) presents a selection of works exhibited for the first time in Florence in some of the city's symbolic places: Museo Novecento, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, Museo degli Innocenti and, exceptionally, in the millenary Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte. The exhibition is a journey through the pictorial universe of the Iranian-American artist, who has lived and worked in New York since the 1980s. With a selection of 24 works, Light, Gaze, Presence unites some of the main strands of Y.Z.'s artistic research. Kami in a close dialogue with the extraordinary medieval and renaissance masterpieces housed there.

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.