Summer 2023: the art exhibitions to see in Italy

Everybody Talks About the Weather, Fondazione Prada Venice, until November 26th

Even art is sensitive to the weather. At least according to Dieter Roelstraete, curator of this exhibition, who investigated how the meanings of weather influence visual art and can act as a premise for reflecting on the ongoing climate change.

An almost form of meteoropathy in art that in this exhibition unfolds along a path that compares historical works (from allegorical paintings to en plan air painting) with more recent ones, in an interweaving with the world of scientific research which presents, in various locations, the bibliography of over 500 volumes to be consulted freely to read up on the work on display.

Science and artistic creation are the tools that Fondazione Prada has chosen to try to respond to the great current cultural challenges.

Who will like it: those who think that climate change is an issue to be looked at from all points of view and those who believe that art and science are excellent allies for understanding and building the future.

Useful information: Fondazione Prada Venezia, Ca' Corner della Regina, Santa Croce 2215, Venice, open every day from 10 to 18, closed on Tuesdays.

AcquaAriaTerraFuoco, the work of Helidon Xhixha on Lake Iseo, Fondazione L'Arsenale, Lake Iseo, until October 1st

The preparation of this exhibition has to do with the geological history of the place. They are the mountains, the lake and the story of their formation, when, in the Pliocene, about 6 million years ago, the waters of a river dug a deep cut in the earth until it was transformed into a lake and the ice modeled the earth up to making mountain peaks, to welcome the contemporary sculptures of Helidon Xhixha.

And it is precisely his sculptures that bring to mind that very ancient story, almost as if his icy metal ices that emerge from the earth wanted to remind everyone that nature, that nature, has forged the first and most extraordinary land art intervention of the place.

For Xhixha, in fact, the monument is not only a physical object but also a reflection of the external environment and at the same time an abstraction. Two exhibitions, a widespread exhibition with large sculptures between Iseo and Clusane and one at the Fondazione l'Arsenale di Iseo with open and sketches by the artist.

Who will like it: those who want to discover new artistic forms of intersection between nature and culture.

Useful information: Widespread exhibition in Iseo and Clusane; Exhibition at Fondazine l'Arsenale, vicolo Malinconia 2 Iseo, open Thursday and Friday from 16.00-19.00; Saturday 10.30-12.30 and 16.00-22.00; Sunday and holidays 10.30-12.30 and 16.00-19.00

Paul Ventura. Senigallia, Palazzo del Duca, Senigallia, until October 31st

Paolo Ventura talks about the city of Senigallia. Indeed, no: Paolo Ventura photographically documents the invisible that is hidden in the architecture of the city of Senigallia.

Because in fact the photographer's research is all about what is not evident, about the dreamlike and imaginative dimension that every city tells about itself.

And this site-specific work, born as part of the Senigallia City of Photography event, is inspired by the city of the Marche region, which however becomes an opportunity for dreams, a journey to places that are recognizable but abstract from the context.

Photography and painting mix, as always in Ventura's works, to create real images of non-existent places and without any possible temporal connection.

Who will like it: those who love the work of this artist and those who think of the landscape as a creative and imaginative tool.

Useful information: Palazzo del Duca, via Fratelli Bandiera 11, Senigallia, open from Thursday to Sunday from 3pm to 8pm.

We are Forest, Triennale Milano, until October 29

There are 27 artists who make up this exhibition born from the collaboration between the Milanese Triennale and the Parisian Fondation Cartier with a forest theme.

With a decidedly particular cut because it does not speak of the dichotomy between nature and culture, of their possible dialogue or of the perennial distance between the two elements, but of their coincidence. Indeed, as the title suggests, (we) We are forest and this wild place is the place where the meeting of cultures is celebrated . Then naturalness becomes a stimulus to investigate the role of the human being in the universe of living beings.

Made under the artistic direction of the anthropologist Bruce Albert and the artistic general director of the Fondation Cartier Hervé Chandès, the exhibition is based on an installation created by the artist Luiz Zerbini and brings together the works of artists from different countries, cultures and social contexts, mostly Latin American and many of whom belong to indigenous communities, with the aim of proposing new points of view on contemporaneity.

Who will like it: those looking for new stimuli, those who want to discover new artistic expressions capable of investigating the great current issues.

Useful information: Triennale Milano, viale Alemagna 6, open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 8pm.

Vielheit [multiplicity]. Stories from the post-migrant society, Kunst Meran Merano Arte, until 24 September

We talk about migrants and multiplicity in this exhibition which brings together different and diversified interventions to narrate coexistence in post-migrant societies. The language is that of art which becomes an instrument for understanding and reading the social and cultural changes in progress or which have already occurred. What is meant by post-migrant society?

It is the one characterized by the daily coexistence of people of different origins, as well as cultural, social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. That multiplicity that is often not represented or considered in the media narrative and in political discourse.

And that here instead becomes the raison d'être of an exhibition itinerary focused on complexity. Thus multiplicity becomes a space for the possible, but also a challenge to be accepted and shared, identity a topic for discussion and comparison and the stereotype an element never to be overlooked.

Who will like it: those who want to get to know other perspectives, those who think of the plurality of our societies and those who believe in art as a bridge between cultures

Useful information: Kunst Meran Merano Arte, Cassa di Risparmio Portici building 163 Merano, open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm; Sunday 11 - 18.

Mario Merz. My Home's Wind, Zac Cantieri cultural alla Zisa, until to September 24

The one promoted in the spaces of the cultural sites of the Zisa is the first retrospective dedicated to Mario Merz in Sicily, set up on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the death of the Milanese artist but Turinese by adoption.

His artistic history unfolds along a narrative arc from 1969 to 2002, through a wide selection of works that aims to show the creative, critical and experimental elements of his research. Starting with the exhibition itinerary, thought of Mario Merz, that is how the artist would have conceived it.

In the words of Beatrice Merz, president of the Foundation, “Here we are asking ourselves once again after all these years: how would Mario do it? What would you bring to Palermo?

We will look for his words through our hands, we will build a new exhibition with the works, certainly 'different' from how he would have done it, but respectful, poetic, scientific, rigorous, albeit with some seeds of irrationality ".

Who will like it: those who love the work of the Turin artist, those looking for the reasons for an installation.

Useful information: ZACentrale ZAC – Zisa Arti Contemporanee, Via Paolo Gili 4, Palermo, open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10.00 to 18.00

Mario Merz. My Home's Wind, Zac Cantieri cultural alla Zisa, until to September 24

The one promoted in the spaces of the cultural sites of the Zisa is the first retrospective dedicated to Mario Merz in Sicily, set up on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the death of the Milanese artist but Turinese by adoption.

His artistic history unfolds along a narrative arc from 1969 to 2002, through a wide selection of works that aims to show the creative, critical and experimental elements of his research. Starting with the exhibition itinerary, thought of Mario Merz, that is how the artist would have conceived it.

In the words of Beatrice Merz, president of the Foundation, “Here we are asking ourselves once again after all these years: how would Mario do it? What would you bring to Palermo?

We will look for his words through our hands, we will build a new exhibition with the works, certainly 'different' from how he would have done it, but respectful, poetic, scientific, rigorous, albeit with some seeds of irrationality " .

Who will like it: those who love the work of the Turin artist, those looking for the reasons for an installation.

Useful information: ZACentrale ZAC – Zisa Arti Contemporanee, Via Paolo Gili 4, Palermo, open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10.00 to 18.00