From Rome and Naples to Florence and Venice, visit this summer’s exhibitions around Italy and discover works by Louise Bourgeois, Sonia Boyce, Rita Ackermann, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Pierre Huyghe, William Kentridge, Anna Maria Maiolino, Zeng Fanzhi and more.
Sonia Boyce
Benevolence
17 May – 22 September 2024
Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo
The new site-specific project ‘BENEVOLENCE’ commissioned by GAMeC, is a collaboration involving students from the ‘Gaetano Donizetti’ Higher Institute of Musical Studies, and reframes their performance of the song ‘Bella Ciao’ in Bergamo’s ‘Città Alta.’ Featuring six ‘visual monuments’ and an environmental video installation, the project reflects on the unifying and divisive power of music, emphasizing its enduring significance.
Rita Ackermann
Manna Rain
10 June – 30 July, 2024 (by appointment only)
Fondazione Iris, Bassano in Teverina
Rita Ackermann’s solo exhibition at Fondazione Iris includes a suite of paintings and works on paper, a film and a site-specific mural. The works in this exhibition are a culmination of Ackermann’s long standing engagement with Twombly’s oeuvre and brush upon eternal themes of nature, divinity, mythology, and poetry.
Louise Bourgeois
Unconscious Memories
21 June – 15 September 2024
Galleria Borghese, Rome
‘Louise Bourgeois. Unconscious memories,’ explores Bourgeois’s profound contributions to sculpture by placing her work in dialogue with the storied collection and unique architecture of the Galleria Borghese. The selection of over 20 sculptural artworks revolve around themes of metamorphosis, memory, and the expression of emotional and psychological states.
Louise Bourgeois
Do not abandon me
22 June – 20 October 2024
Museo Novecento, Florence
The exhibition, curated by Philip Larratt-Smith and Sergio Risaliti in collaboration with The Easton Foundation, is conceived in close dialogue with the architecture of the former Leopoldine building. The exhibition presents over a hundred works including many gouaches made during the last five years of her life, that explore the cycles of life through an iconography of sexuality, procreation, birth, motherhood, feeding, dependency, the couple, the family unit, and flowers. The exhibition also presents sculptures of various sizes, in fabric, bronze, marble and other materials, as well as Spider Couple (2003), one of the most famous and emblematic creations of the artist, and one of her remarkable Cell.
Louise Bourgeois
Cell XVIII (Portrait)
22 June – 20 October 2024
Museo degli Innocenti, Florence
In the complex designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, the Museum spaces will host Cell XVIII (Portrait) by Louise Bourgeois, a work of strong visual impact in powerful resonance with the history and collection of the Innocenti, chosen by Philip Larratt-Smith in dialogue with Arabella Natalini, director of the Museo degli Innocenti, and Stefania Rispoli, curator of the Museo Novecento.
Louise Bourgeois
Rare Language
25 June – 28 September 2024
Studio Trisorio, Naples
Opening on 25 June, ‘Louise Bourgeois. Rare Language’ presents over 39 works, including drawings from 1947 to 2008 and sculptures from 1985 to 2005.
Zeng Fanzhi
Near and Far/Now and Then
17 April – 30 September 2024
Scuola Grande della Misericordia, Venice
Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), ‘Zeng Fanzhi: Near and Far/Now and Then’ debuts new works by renowned artist Zeng Fanzhi at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, with an installation designed by architect Tadao Ando.
William Kentridge
Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot
17 April – 24 November 2024
Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation, Venice
For his new exhibition at Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation in Venice, South African artist William Kentridge, collaborates with curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, friend and author of the foundational monograph on his work published in 1998, to premiere his intriguing new nine-episode video series, ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot.’
Pierre Huyghe
Liminal
17 March – 24 November 2024
Punta Della Dogana
In his largest exhibition to date, Pierre Huyghe has transformed Punta Della Dogana – Pinault Collection into a dynamic environment—a transitory state, whose time and space, as well as everything that enters, visible or invisible, are constituents of the works.
Berlinde De Bruyckere
City of Refuge III
‘Berlinde De Bruyckere. City of Refuge III’
20 April – 24 November 2024
Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
Specifically conceived for the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore, ‘City of Refuge III’ is the third in a series of exhibitions by Berlinde De Bruyckere thematizing art as a place of sanctuary and shelter, reinforced here by the venue’s spiritual intensity. Oscillating between transcendence and material immanence, the exhibition is based on three new groups of works by the artist which uniquely respond to the church’s monumental architecture, function, symbolism and history.
Anna Maria Maiolino
Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere
20 April – 24 November 2024
Giardini and Arsenale
Honored with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Biennale Arte 2024, Anna Maria Maiolino features in ‘Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere,’ curated by Adriano Pedrosa, presenting a new large-scale work that continues and unfolds her series of sculptures and installations in clay.
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Images: Sonia Boyce, Benevolence, 2024 © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2024. Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri; Rita Ackermann, Transparent Horizon Reigns (detail), 2024 © Rita Ackermann. Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer; Louise Bourgeois, Jambes Enlacées, 1990 © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Allan Finkelman; Louise Bourgeois, Pregnant Woman, 2008 © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Christopher Burke; Louise Bourgeois, Cell XVIII (Portrait) (detail), 2000 © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Christopher Burke; Louise Bourgeois, Father and Son, 2004 © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Christopher Burke; Installation view, ‘Near and Far/Now and Then. New works by Zeng Fanzhi,’ Scuola Grande della Misericordia, Venice, Italy, 2024 © Zeng Fanzhi. Courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich; Installation view, ‘William Kentridge. Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot,’ Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation, Venice, Italy, 2024 © William Kentridge. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2024. Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich; Pierre Huyghe, Liminal (still), Punta della Dogana, Venice, 2024. Camata, 2024 Robotics driven by machine learning, self-directed film, edited in real time by Artificial Intelligence, sound sensors © Pierre Huyghe. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Marian Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Esther Schipper, TARO NASU, Anna Lena Films; Installation view, ‘Berlinde De Bruyckere. City of Refuge III,’ Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2024. Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia © Berlinde De Bruyckere. Photo: Mirjam Devriendt; Anna Maria Maiolino, Indo & Vindo (Coming & Going), 2024 © Anna Maria Maiolino. Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich.