Exhibitions and events not to miss in February in Italy

Ph. Agostino Osio

Milan: REBECCA. Benni Bosetto
The exhibition takes its name from Daphne du Maurier’s novel and marks the first major institutional show by Benni Bosetto. The Shed at Pirelli HangarBicocca transforms into a living, welcoming feminine organism, a house-body where rooms, walls, and animated decorations create a dreamlike domestic landscape. Between symbolic ornaments and the slow rhythms of craft, the exhibition invites visitors to reclaim subjective time, turning the space into an intimate and political place to imagine, dream, and assert freedom.

Until July 19, 2026, at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca
 

Ph. Andrea Vezzù

Venice: La Geometria della Grazia
The exhibition pays tribute to Horst P. Horst, a master of twentieth-century photography, offering a fresh perspective beyond his iconic fashion images. At Le Stanze della Fotografia on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, over 300 works—including vintage prints, color photographs, and previously unseen material—explore the image as an architecture of form and light. Between modernist rigor and classical sensuality, the exhibition becomes a journey through balance and proportion, highlighting an artist who merged art, design, and photography with remarkable skill.

Until July 5, 2026, at Le Stanze della Fotografia
 

© Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

Milan: Le Alchimiste
A site-specific work by contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer for the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale. Through a monumental cycle of forty-two canvases, Kiefer pays tribute to women alchemists, bringing to light forgotten female figures across history, science, and myth. In dialogue with the wounded memory of the space, the paintings become symbolic matter and acts of resurrection, creating a female pantheon where alchemy, art, and collective memory intertwine in an intense and immersive journey.

Until September 27, 2026, at Palazzo Reale
 

Joan Mirò. Centenario Mourlot, 1953, Original color lithograph

Naples: Joan Mirò: per poi arrivare all’anima
The exhibition investigates the relationship between word and image in Joan Miró’s work, highlighting a fundamental yet less explored aspect of his poetics. Through a significant selection of graphic works, the exhibition emphasizes calligraphy, writing, and mark-making as autonomous forms of expression in dynamic dialogue with painting. In this experimental space, between psychic automatism and literary collaborations, graphic works become a synthesis where gesture, word, and image converge into a free, essential, and deeply visionary language.

Until April 19, 2026, at Lapis museum
 

Ph. Cosimo Trimboli
 

Rome: Franco Battiato. Un’altra vita
A special exhibition celebrating the human and musical genius of Franco Battiato, a total artist who traversed music, poetry, philosophy, and critical thought. The show offers a transversal journey across eras and languages, revealing the coherence of a vision that profoundly shaped Italian songwriting. An immersive sound core forms the center of the experience, branching into a narrative of images, iconic album covers, posters, and rare materials. Sound and vision intertwine with artistic and spiritual research, balancing experimentation and accessibility, avant-garde and pop, leaving a legacy that remains vibrant and relevant today.

Until April 26, 2026, at MAXXI
 

Fujiwara no Yasumasa plays the flute under the moonlight                                                Poster, Kazumasa Nagai

Bologna: Graphic Japan. Da Hokusai al manga
A fascinating journey through Japanese graphic art, from Edo-period prints to the energy of contemporary manga. Over 250 works of various types create a constant dialogue between tradition and innovation, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in unique signs, colors, and forms. Four sections—Motivi di Natura, Volti e Maschere, Calligrafia e Tipografia, Giapponismo—guide the path through poetic landscapes, enigmatic faces, written signs, and Western influences, showing how Japanese visual culture can renew itself without losing its identity. Each work narrates the interplay between art, daily life, and storytelling, revealing a Japan that blends memory and contemporaneity.

Until April 6, 2026, at Museo Civico Archeologico
 

Mark Rothko a Firenze © Palazzo Strozzi

Florence: Rothko a Firenze
Palazzo Strozzi presents a major exhibition dedicated to Mark Rothko, a key figure in twentieth-century American art, featuring an exceptional selection of works from major international collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate, the Centre Pompidou, and the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition traces the evolution of his language, from early figurative works to his renowned abstract canvases, highlighting the dialogue with Expressionism, Surrealism, and Italian artistic tradition. Color and light become instruments of contemplation, shaping pictorial spaces suspended between abstraction and spirituality.

Until August 23, 2026, at Palazzo Strozzi