We’re in town this week for Milan Fashion Week—but making sure to stop by a handful of galleries and museums to check out the best Milan exhibitions on view now (or soon), including at MASSIMODECARLO, Pirelli HangarBicocca, and Fondazione Prada.
Gianfranco Baruchello’s “Primo alfabeto” at MASSIMODECARLO
Installation view of Gianfranco Baruchello’s “Primo alfabeto” at MASSIMODECARLO, photo by Roberto Marossi, courtesy of MASSIMODECARLO.
January 11-March 9, 2024
Gianfranco Baruchello produces a radical redesign of our idea of the alphabet in Primo alfabeto, on view at MASSIMODECARLO in Milan until March 9. This exhibition, curated by Carla Subrizi and Maria Alicata, brings together the works of Gianfranco Baruchello produced between 1959 and 1962, and two drawings from 1963, for the first time.
Baruchello’s paintings, objects, and drawings form, in his own words, “a manifesto against the rhetoric of the modern world.” The figures of his work form an alphabet based on the corporeal and the emotional, rather than any pre-existing system of concepts or constructions. In fact, every aspect of the Italian artist’s technique is defined by this subversion of convention. Baruchello invents compound words in Latin to name his images. He eschews oil paints in favor of industrial enamels and materials, rustproof varnishes, and synthetic resins and solvents. At MASSIMODECARLO, Primo alfabeto sends visitors into the liminal spaces of autonomous language and the profound realm of Baruchello’s art.
Chiara Camoni at Pirelli HangarBicocca
Exhibition of Chiara Camoni “Call and gather. Sisters. Moths and flame twisters. Lioness bones, snakes and stones.” at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2024, photo by Agostino Osio, courtesy of the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan.
February 15 – July 21, 2024
The title of Chiara Camoni’s solo exhibition for Pirelli HangarBicocca reads like an incantation: “Chiamare a raduno. Sorelle. Falene e fiammelle. Ossa di leonesse, pietre e serpentesse.” (Translated to English: “Call and gather. Sisters. Moths and flame twisters. Lioness bones, snakes and stones.”). Indeed, the exhibition curated by Lucia Aspesi and Fiammetta Griccioli opens the spiritual and mystical dimension of Camoni’s drawings, vegetable printings, videos, sculptures, and ceramics. From now until mid-July, Pirelli HangarBicocca showcases the largest body of Camoni’s historical works ever presented, alongside new productions conceived and created especially for the exhibition such as The Three Snakes (2024) and Serpenti e Serpentesse (2024). Characterized by the use of household objects and organic elements, Camoni’s works of multiple mediums use production methodologies that invoke a strong connection to the ancestral and archaic worlds. The exhibit’s radial floor plan creates the perfect architecture of corridors, rooms, and an empty nucleus around which the project revolves, transforming the exhibition into a gathering and giving life to Camoni’s artistic architecture of collectivity and memory.
“Miranda July: New Society” at Fondazione Prada
Miranda July in “The Swan Tool,” 2000, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon, photo by Harrell Fletcher, courtesy of Miranda July Studio.
March 7 – October 14, 2024
Fondazione Prada showcases American artist, filmmaker, and writer Miranda July’s work in a rare dual exhibition curated by Mia Locks. Miranda July: New Society examines the range of July’s new and old works, forming a multifaceted retrospective that contextualizes each piece within the artist’s body of work from the last three decades. The exhibit promises an exploration of human relationships and intimacy and the questioning of established hierarchies and normative power dynamics rife throughout July’s oeuvre. The first level of the Fondazione Prada Osservatorio features documentation of July’s performances, from her debut in punk clubs to major pieces like New Society (2015). The second level presents July’s new work F.A.M.I.L.Y. (Falling Apart Meanwhile I Love You), a video installation featuring July’s collaboration with seven other performers; two collaborative projects, I’m the President, Baby (2018) and Services (2020); and a revival of the web-based project Learning to Love You More (2000-2007).
The artwork exhibition at the Osservatorio is accompanied by the screening of July’s entire filmography at Fondazione Prada’s Cinema Godard, including Me and You and Everyone We Know (2004), Kajillionaire (2020), and some of her unreleased works.
