8 exhibitions to see in October

Clocked. This is not an escape room. On the history of design, ADI Design Museum, from 4 to 29 October

Curated by Marta Palvarini, conceived and promoted by the Circuito Lombardo Musei Design, this exhibition uses game as a tool investigative and cognitive method. To discover (and learn) a lot about the history of design.

Just as in an escape room without actually being one, the public will be able to play actively during a visit to the exhibition. There are 16 objects selected among the most iconic of Made in Italy design to mark the path along some stations where players will have to stop to solve some puzzles, look for solutions and reveal mysteries.

From the basement of the museum, where Clocked is set up, only the most imaginative and refined detectives will make it out alive... But no, this is not an escape room, don't worry! But don't forget that gaming is a very serious thing!

Who will like it: those who believe that game design is a tool for cultural planning, those who love to play and those looking for new ways of teaching and communicating.

Useful information: ADI Design Museum, piazza Compasso d 'Oro 1, Milan, open from Saturday to Thursday 10.30am - 8pm. Closed on Friday.

Tobia Scarpa: design and taste of the Italian table, Civic Museum of Paleontology and Paleethnology of Maglie (Lecce), until 31 October

What does it mean to be at the table? And setting the table? This exhibition tells many things. It compares Tobia Scarpa's creations for the table (tables included) with the finds of a prehistoric Salento , among very interesting tools and finds in the caves that dot the region, between the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic, normally housed in this museum.

But it also talks about the present in an investigation into very contemporary conviviality. The creations of the Venetian designer and architect (born in 1935 and twice Compasso d'Oro) are based on his first project, a table born from the need to celebrate the Olivetti Prize victory of his father, CarloScarpa, in 1958: space was needed to accommodate all the guests at the party!

For Tobia that was the beginning of constant designing, but above all without labels: distinguishing between architect or designer makes no sense to him, rather we need to talk about project and drawing as an expressive tool. This is how his very long creative story begins with his wife Afra. On display, objects, drawings and even some unpublished works, also collected in a book enriched by numerous critical interventions.

The idea for this exhibition was born as part of the Taste and Culture project of the Mercatino del Gusto with the Municipality of Maglie, which last year started a collaboration with the Civic Museum of Paleontology and Paleethnology. It was inaugurated by the exhibition “At the table with Giò Ponti. Let's set the angels" with the co-curation of Salvatore Licitra, head of the Ponti archive, and the architects Roberto Marcatti and Cintya Concari who have also edited the current one dedicated to Tobia Scarpa.

Who will like it: Setting the table and choosing the most suitable utensils (and closest to your taste) for everyday life is a first step towards living in beauty... the exhibition will appeal to all those who love design industrial, beauty within reach and being at the table with friends.

Useful information: Civic Museum of Paleontology and Paleethnology of Maglie (Lecce), Via Vittorio Emanuele 117, open from Monday to Friday 9.00 - 13.00 and 15.30 - 18.30; Saturday and Sunday from 4pm to 7pm.

Mattia Bosco, Kòrai, Colosseum archaeological park, Rome, until 14 January 2024

Kòrai, the girls in ancient Greek and then the harmonious statues that portrayed them handed down to us. This is the word that describes the faces, bodies, light dresses, sandals and hairstyles of Greek girls in that harmonious gait that has always highlighted their proportions and beauty.

And the korai are those created by Mattia Bosco for his exhibition in the archaeological park of the Colosseum, 12 marble sculptures conceived specifically for the spaces of theTemple of Venus and Rome, the largest Temple of ancient Rome. Inaugurated in 136 AD, this sacred building was adorned with the best materials of the Empire, in particular marble: Cipollino, Portoro, red Collemandina, Paonazzo, Fiordipesco and white Carrara made up the floors, interiors and columns.

Those very materials return to the rooms of the temple as if they were the girls who have always inhabited it. Mattia Bosco does a very interesting job using only waste material from the extraction work and places his blocks in the spaces of the temple.

The dialogue between architecture and sculpture is perfect, also guaranteed by a conversation between past and present: there are nine sculptures in the temple of Venus designed as vestals, while two Golden Sections, located in the cell of Venus, they tell time in book form. Its opening is an opening in the material that goes from rough to reflective, ready to welcome the imagination. Finally, a Stonegate carved into the stone acts as the entrance door, a passage towards a territory in which here and elsewhere, the past and the present coexist.

Who will like it: enthusiasts of archaeology, sculpture and architecture. To those looking, above all, for dialogue between different eras and stories.

Useful information: Archaeological Park of the Colosseum, Piazza del Colosseo, open to visitors from 9am - 6.30pm and from 29 October from 9am - 4.30pm

Gabriele Basilico, My cities, Triennale and Palazzo Reale from October 13th to February 11th.

Vincenzo Castella, Triennale, from 19 October to 7 January.

There are two exhibitions that tell the story of cities in the form of photos this month in Milan. We begin with Gabriele Basilico who with My Cities shows 500 shots of his look at architecture ten years after his death. There are two exhibition venues, Triennale, where the public will be able to immerse themselves in the city of Milan and its suburbs and then look at the whole world in the rooms of Palazzo Reale.

Both curated by Giovanna Calvenzi together with Matteo Balduzzi (for Triennale) and Filippo Maggia (for Palazzo Reale), the two exhibitions are a real immersion in Basilico's gaze, in his seeing the architecture and narrating the space.

Next to him, Vincenzo Castella who opens a few days later at the Triennale with photographs of him in different formats and focused on urban space. Naples and Milan are under his lens, places of choice well known to the photographer, and then he broadens his gaze to other European cities that complete the themes investigated together with the vegetable gardens botanists.

Who will like them: enthusiasts of photography, urban planning and composition.

Useful information: Gabriele Basilico, My cities, Triennale (via Alemagna 6, from 13 October to 7 January) and Palazzo Reale (piazza Duomo, from 13 October to 11 February), Milan, which can be visited from Tuesday to Sunday 10am-7.30pm, Thursday until 10.30pm.

Architecture and photography in the countryside of Emilia Romagna, MAMbo Project Room, from 29 September to 7 January

A particular exhibition, certainly interesting for learning about the territory of Emilia Romagna which uses two investigative tools, architectural research and photography. The protagonists are Maura Savini who has been carrying out research on the territory from an architectural point of view for some time at the Architecture Department of the University of Bologna and the photographer Guido Guidi strong> which has been describing the territory through its lens since the 1960s.

On display there will be documents of local architecture (drawings, projects, reliefs, maps, cables, paintings) together with photos of Guidi who exhibits 29 unpublished productions created in the area of Granarolo, Minerbio and San Giorgio di Cesena. We thus investigate the forms that go beyond classical or functionalist schemes, on the architecture, on the organization of the soil and on the settlements of the Po Valley area.

Who will like it: photography lovers and enthusiasts of designing spaces in everyday life.

Useful information: MAMbo - Museum of Modern Art Bologna, Piazza Maggiore 6, Bologna, open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 2pm to 7pm; on Thursdays until 8pm; Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays from 10am to 7pm.

Daniel Buren "Fifty years later. The ninth exhibition. Works in situ and situated”, Galleria Minini, Brescia, until November 15.

50 years have passed since Daniel Buren held his first exhibition in this gallery. At the time he showed up with a scribbled roll of paper, as told by Massimo Minini who announced this exhibition without a real announcement.

It was very hot in July when he was waiting to receive, if not exactly the exhibition materials, at least a description of what would happen in his exhibition space. However, nothing has arrived, the absolute trust that the gallery owner places in Buren transpires.

Then, around September 20th, he showed up with a series of fabric rolls that he sewed and assembled on site to completely transform the face of the gallery. Here,the works are now located and created in situ (at least in part), as the title indicates. Must see: Buren plays with colours, lights and above all with spaces, like a juggler or a magician.

Who will like it: those who love experimentation, those who have always followed Buren, those looking for inspiration.

Useful information: Galleria Massimo Minini, via Apollonio 68, Brescia, open from Monday to Friday from 10am to 7pm, on Saturdays from 3pm to 7pm.

James Lee Byars, Pirelli HangarBicocca, from 12 October to February 18, 2024

Artist, psychologist and philosopher, a great lover of Japan, where he will live for a long time alternating with the United States, James Lee Byars then chooses a nomadic solution that will lead him to move between New York, Bern, Santa Fe and California.

He developed a close relationship with Italy, in particular with Venice, where in 1975 he created the famous performance The Holy Ghost, then deciding to lived and worked there for a good part of the 1980s. HangarBicocca offers a solo show to this eccentric, multifaceted and extremely versatile personality which recounts his works in dialogue, as always, with the exhibition spaces.

What has always fascinated his audience is above all the strength with which Byars manages to unite Eastern art with Western philosophy. Through the use of different media, such as installation, sculpture, performance, drawing and words, in fact, the artist has given life to a mystical-aesthetic reflection on the concepts of perfection, cyclicality and on the human figure in direct involvement of the public, called to answer their questions.

A performer, a conceptual and installed artist can all be the definition of James Lee Byars, pioneer pioneer of these expressive techniques which are now back on display 30 years after the last exhibition. And this time we take a journey to research him and reflect on the alchemical potential of art in shaping reality. The exhibition itinerary opens with the monumental The Golden Tower (1990) and ends withRed Angel of Marseille (1993): a thousand glass spheres red arranged on the floor create a sumptuous anthropomorphic and, at the same time, floral shape.

Who will like it: those who love this artist, those who want to discover him and those who believe in doubt as an instrument of knowledge.

Useful information:Pirelli HangarBicocca, via Chiese 2, open from Thursday to Sunday 10.30am - 8.30pm.