Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

A broad programming, varied in themes and languages, which responds to the many different needs of the Milanese and visitors to our city, and of an international scope
 
Milan, 2 December 2019 - The program of exhibitions in the exhibition spaces of the Municipality of Milan for the year 2020 and the preview of some major exhibitions in 2021 were presented today at Palazzo Reale by the Mayor Giuseppe Sala and the Councilor for Culture Filippo Del Corno.

A broad program, varied in themes and languages, which responds to the many different needs of the Milanese and visitors to our city, of great curatorial and artistic quality and with an international scope that allows, also thanks to the programming time frame extended up to to 2021, to build that tourist and cultural incoming which, as the numbers demonstrate, is growing in Milan more and more every year. 

The long-term planning, which is also the result of in-depth relationship work with institutions and providers, is the sign of a meaningful planning that is increasingly appreciated, in Italy and abroad, and aligns Milan with the most important cultural institutions of the world, encouraging international collaborations.

"The Milanese and tourists visiting Milan - commented Mayor Sala - will have at their disposal a program of exhibitions and exhibition itineraries of great artistic value, also next year. The 2020-21 program that we present today speaks, in fact, of a city ​​increasingly capable of responding with originality to plural and international cultural interests. The exhibition proposals we are offering to the city are rewarded by the public and critics: this year, for example, 'Leonardo mai visto', still in progress, ranks among the most visited exhibition itineraries in all of Italy. And again as part of the celebrations for the fifth centenary of Leonardo da Vinci's death, the Sala delle Asse was greatly appreciated, to the point that we decided to extend its opening until April 2020".

The artistic programming lines of the 2020/21 exhibition calendar are in fact well recognizable and create a framework that allows you to follow coherent and identifiable interests, trends and projects.

The first of these lines, in chronological order, is the one that follows the thread of Leonardo's celebrations and is included in the "Milano Leonardo 500" schedule. The great success of "Leonardo mai visto", which has already been visited by over 250.000 people, has in fact led the Administration to extend the extraordinary opening of the Sala delle Asse until 19 April 2020, and the Castello Sforzesco to accompany the initiative with two other exhibition projects dedicated to the da Vinci genius: “Leonardo's Atelier and the Salvator mundi” and “A writing in the mirror. The secrets of Leonardo's left hand”.

A second line that interweaves the entire 2020 programming is the announced cultural schedule dedicated to "The talents of women": promoted and coordinated by the Municipality of Milan | Culture, it will propose a calendar of multidisciplinary initiatives - from the visual arts to the various forms of entertainment from alive, from letters to the media, from fashion to science - dedicated to women protagonists in culture and creative thought. The overall schedule will be presented in January 2020, but the exhibition programming already highlights (with the ad hoc logo that will characterize all the initiatives) the projects designed to tell the story of the female artistic universe: from the "Street Stories" photographed by Letizia Battaglia (Palazzo Reale) to the exhibition dedicated to Adriana Bisi Fabbri, protagonist of the early twentieth century (Museo del Novecento); from the anthology by Grazia Varisco (Palazzo Reale), to the exhibition dedicated to Marieda Boschi, a Milanese collector but above all a very talented ceramist and sculptor (Casa Boschi-Di Stefano); from the “Divine avant-garde” exhibition which will tell the story of the evolution of the female figure as a subject and object of representation in Russia from the fifteenth to the twentieth century (Palazzo Reale), to the photographic exhibition by Luisa Menazzi Moretti which portrays the faces (and stories) of women and immigrant men in our country (Mudec photo); from the one hundred etchings by Federica Galli (Palazzo Morando), to the collective exhibition dedicated to the great artists of the 600th century, the “Women of the Baroque”: Artemisia Gentileschi, Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani and Fede Galizia (Palazzo Reale). 

Milan Artweek, the week dedicated to modern and contemporary art which from 14 to 19 April 2020, on the occasion of miart, the international modern and contemporary art fair, also marks an important planning line. In fact, like every spring, Milan organizes a rich program of ambitious artistic projects and ad hoc exhibitions, involving the main public institutions and private foundations. In its exhibition venues, the Municipality of Milan offers contemporary art enthusiasts the first, large anthology dedicated to Carla Accardi after her death and the solo exhibition by Franco Guerzoni (Museo del Novecento), the performative universe of the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera (PAC), the timeless charm of calligraphy investigated with new languages ​​by six Chinese artists (Royal Palace) and Nairy Baghramian's solo exhibition (“Furla series #03”), the first exhibition in a public space by the Iranian artist, designed in dialogue with the spaces and collection of the Gallery of Modern Art (GAM).

Photoweek traces an equally defined line in next year's exhibition programme, with a series of photographic exhibitions, still in progress, set up in different exhibition spaces: Tina Modotti and "her" Mexico will be the protagonists of an exhibition at Mudec, while at Palazzo The extraordinary images created by Margaret Bourke-White will be on stage.

“The exhibition program that we present today is inscribed in a quadrant of coherence and organicity, where a crucial axis is represented by the adherence of the individual exhibitions to the identity and mission of each individual institute that designs and creates them – declared the councilor for culture Filippo Del Corno –. An activity that confirms the research and in-depth work of civic institutes, which is continuous and fundamental for the conservation and valorization of a heritage that belongs to our city, and the ability to build a fruitful dialogue with institutions, projects and artists from Worldwide". 

And in fact the Archaeological Museum offers an insight into Egyptian culture (“Under the sky of Nut”); the Civic Aquarium creates in its spaces a photographic exhibition on the great Italian scientists and three art exhibitions related to the theme of water (by Letizia Fornasieri, Alessandro Spadari and Maria Cristina Fioretti); Palazzo Morando develops its mission as a space dedicated to costume with the “Stile Milano” exhibition; the GAM delves into the nineteenth-century story of Vidović, a Croatian artist similar to Italian symbolist experiences; the Sforzesco Castle together with the Louvre is organizing a major exhibition on Renaissance sculpture (“The soul and the body”); the Sormani Library reconstructs, thanks to its archives, the relationships between some women writers, journalists and poets of the early twentieth century ("Women's writing is the soul of the twentieth century"); the Boschi Di Stefano House Museum puts its extraordinary collection in dialogue with (other) works by Franco Francese and Sergio Dangelo; the Museo del Novecento delves into the artistic career of Anna Valeria Borsari from the seventies to today; PAC explores the world of contemporary Japanese art; the Studio Museo Francesco Messina offers a “Trilogy of colour” in dialogue with its spaces and its collection; Mudec investigates the cultures of the past and future by exploring the influence of robotics from ancient to contemporary times (“Robot”); Palazzo Reale offers great productions dedicated to Georges de la Tour, Mario Sironi, magical realism.

2021 will see major exhibitions dedicated to Titian, Edgar Degas and Pop art at the Palazzo Reale, while the PAC already has Yuri Ancarani's solo exhibition planned.