Exhibitions and events not to miss in February in Italy

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Rome: VENUS 
The exhibition takes its name from the monumental central work by Joana Vasconcelos and reflects on multiple female identities and the aesthetic codes that have shaped the Valentino universe. A direct dialogue unfolds between 12 works by Joana Vasconcelos - including monumental installations and site-specific interventions - and 33 creations by Valentino Garavani selected from the archive. Through abstraction, Vasconcelos reinterprets garments, forms, and textile surfaces, giving life to the Valkyrie VENUS - a body of work that does not imitate, but engages in dialogue with haute couture as a discipline of majestic beauty and refined, almost sacred excellence.

Until May 31, 2026, at Palazzo Mignanelli 
 

Padova, Qui-e-Ora, Fondazione Peruzzo, ph. Ugo Carmeni 2025

Padua: Qui e Ora. Due collezioni nello spirito del tempo
The exhibition is born from the encounter between two major collections: the Alberto Peruzzo Foundation Collection and the AGIVERONA Collection. Placed in dialogue, the seven works - installations, videos, photographs, and paintings - revolve around themes of spirituality, the perception of time, and the way contemporary art inhabits the space of memory. The result is an ideal bridge between the 20th century and the third millennium, revealing how the concept of the “sacred” continues to transform within today’s artistic sensibility.

Until April 12, 2026, at Fondazione Alberto Peruzzo 
 

Silvestro Lega, Un dopo pranzo (Il pergolato)

Milan: I Macchiaioli
More than 100 works from major Italian museums make up the first major retrospective dedicated to the movement that revolutionized Italian painting in the 19th century. The exhibition represents an opportunity for recovery, reflection, and valorization of a fundamental chapter in art history that shaped the shared cultural roots of the country, offering a new and more in-depth reading of their experience.

Until June 14, 2026, at Palazzo Reale 
 

Giorgio de Chirico. L’ultima metafisica

Modena: Giorgio de Chirico. L’ultima metafisica
The exhibition brings together fifty works from the Giorgio and Isa de Chirico Foundation, offering a close look at the final decade of the artist’s career (1968–1978), marked by heightened irony and more vibrant colors. In these years, already in his eighties, de Chirico surprised the art world with a renewed youthful gaze: he did not simply replicate his early inventions, but revisited and transformed them, revealing new meanings.

Until April 12, 2026, at Palazzo dei Musei 
 

untitled, 2023, chair, Michael E. Smith

Bologna: CC. Michael E. Smith
For over twenty years, Smith’s practice has redefined the boundaries of sculpture and installation, moving between minimalism and residue, absence and presence. His works, created with found materials, industrial waste, and recycled objects, form installations of strong emotional impact, where everyday elements appear both fragile and threatening. The underground spaces of Palazzo Bentivoglio, a complex network of signs and transformations, become a new field of exploration for his practice.

Until April 26, 2026, at Palazzo Bentivoglio 
 

Angelo Greco, Lord&Lady sposi

Taranto: I cinque raggi
The exhibition marks the launch of Parati, a new project room dedicated to contemporary artistic research. Greco’s photographs evoke latent realities and processes of metamorphosis, while Marinelli’s intervention activates a layered narrative that reinterprets the site’s past from a forward-looking perspective. Hosted in the former warehouse of a historic bicycle shop, the exhibition inaugurates a program focused on experimentation and contemporary languages, in dialogue with the territory and its cultural vitality.

Until February 15, 2026, at the Mercato coperto di Campagna Amica di Taranto 
 

Helen Chadwick: Life Pleasures

Florence: Helen Chadwick: Life Pleasures
The first major exhibition in Italy dedicated to one of the most radical and influential British artists of the second half of the 20th century. Experimental and unconventional, Chadwick combined strong aesthetic tension with the use of unusual materials - from bodily fluids and meat to flowers, chocolate, and compost. With irony and a deeply feminist perspective, she redefined the boundaries of sculpture and installation, establishing herself as a key figure in postwar British avant-garde art and, in 1987, one of the first women nominated for the Turner Prize.

Until March 1, 2026, at Museo Novecento 
 

ph. Edward Weston

Turin: Edward Weston. La materia delle forme
A wide-ranging anthology tracing all phases of Edward Weston’s production, from still lifes and nudes to landscapes and portraits. The project highlights Weston’s role - as one of the leading figures of modern North American photography - in establishing photography as a poetic and intellectual language, as well as a key to interpreting American aesthetics and lifestyle between the two World Wars.

Until June 2, 2026, at CAMERA