In April 2024, Impressionism will celebrate its 150th anniversary: to mark this important occasion Palazzo Reale will pay tribute to Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) and Paul Cézanne (1839-1906). From March 19th to June 30th, fifty-two masterpieces on loan from the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris will chronicle and confront the lives and works of Cézanne and Renoir. 

Both great masters - the first with his rigorous and geometric art, the second with his more fluid and harmonious poetics - influenced the subsequent generation of painters and modern art: do not miss the epic confrontation of two works by Cézanne and Renoir with two paintings by Pablo Picasso.

These two great masters of French painting had become friends in 1860; they admired each other's work and cultivated a shared interest in certain genres, such as still life, landscape, portrait and nudes.

The exhibition narrative features portraits of the two artists' children, plein air works such as Paysage au toit rouge or Le Pin à l'Estaque by Cézanne, the series of bathers and still lifes: unforgettable are Cézanne's apples and Renoir's flowers.

Palazzo Reale

From € 13 to € 17

How to get there: red M1 subway line and yellow M3 line Duomo stop

Picasso is famous for his deconstruction of figures and faces, an extraordinary revolution in the history of art that forever changed everything that succeeded him. However, to truly understand his way of thinking and creating, it is essential to discover his knowledge of primitive, African, Egyptian and Greek art.

Essentially, Picasso did not consider any art to be ‘primitive’: he emphasised ‘There is neither past nor future in art. If a work of art cannot always live in the present, it has no meaning’.

Throughout his life the artist explored these artistic eras, capturing their essence and meaning, and assimilating them into his works: he attained a constant metamorphosis of figures, producing the masterpieces that we all know so well. 

The Picasso exhibition. Metamorphosis of the Figure at MUDEC – Museum of Cultures from February 22nd to June 30th narrates this constant intellectual re-elaboration and the artistic legacy of his vision.

More than forty works - paintings, sculptures, 26 drawings and sketches from preparatory studies - guide us to discover the revolution achieved by the Spanish artist.

Don't miss Femme nue, a work that was a prelude to the masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, exhibited alongside African masks in an unusual dialogue.

Mudec - Museum of Cultures

From € 10 to € 18

How to get there: M2 Green subway line, S.Agostino stop; tram 14 Piazza del Rosario stop; bus 68, 90/91

Most of us have posed for normal, and even slightly clichéd, pictures at some time such as pretending to hold up the Tower of Pisa, taking a selfie in front of very famous works of art, or simply lying sunbathing on a beach. 

Martin Parr's photography grasps precisely these moments as its subject, but he focuses on the more unconventional details of everyday life: through his lens, we see the ordinary from an unusual point of view, with saturated and bright colours.

The Short & Sweet exhibition at MUDEC – Museum of Cultures from February 10th to June 30th, curated by the artist himself, in collaboration with Magnum Photos, presents over 200 shots spanning all of Parr's career, from the first black & white images to more recent works in colour. 

Through his lens, insignificant objects become important, bright colours become striking and transform clichés, normal lives are altered by new perspectives.

From food tables to beaches, from bodies in movement to stillness, immerse yourself in the kitsch imagery of one of the most famous photographers of our time.

Mudec - Museum of Cultures

From € 7 to € 18

How to get there: M2 Green subway line, S. Agostino stop; tram 14 Piazza del Rosario stop; bus 68, 90/91

An exhibition that narrates a love story: the story between the Hungarian photographer Brassaï and Paris, his chosen domicile. From Montparnasse to the slums to the great monuments, his shots depict the story of the corners of the city and the people who live there.

His great friend Henry Miller referred to him as the ‘living eye’ of photography: the exhibition at Palazzo Reale from February 23rd to June 2nd presents over 200 prints which narrate the life of Paris from the 1930s through the lens of one of the great the 20th-century photographers.

Brassaï took portraits of Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, and he experienced the history of the surrealist movement from within.

Discover the beauty created by the great photographer and his love for La Ville Lumière: don't miss Les escaliers de Montmartre (The Stairs of Montmartre) and the shots from The Secret Paris of the 30's collection which includes images that were considered too scandalous for that era, but which have become part of contemporary culture.

Palazzo Reale

From € 13 to € 17

How to get there: Red subway line M1 and yellow line M3, Duomo stop

An artist, but also a philosopher who asks each of us to confront the truth about ourselves and the society in which we live.

Adrian Piper comes to the PAC – Contemporary Art Pavilion from March 20th to June 9th, for her first European retrospective.

The artist’s works include paintings and sculptures but also performances and public installations, all aimed at promoting the fight against racism, misogyny, xenophobia, social injustice and hatred on all fronts.

Evocative and engaging conceptual art which earned her the Golden Lion at the 2015 Biennale. Don't miss the works on loan from MoMa and Guggenheim in New York, MoMa in San Francisco, MCA in Chicago, MOCA in Los Angeles and Tate Modern in London.

PAC – Contemporary art pavilion

From € 4 to € 8

How to get there: Red subway line M1, Palestro stop, and Yellow line M3 Turati stop; Buses 61, 94; tram 1

When Giorgio Armani was still a young freelance stylist in the mid-70s he met Aldo Fallai, a graphic design graduate of the Institute of Art with a great passion for photography. The rest is history: up until 2000, and then again in recent years until 2021, Fallai and Armani collaborated to create an aesthetic that has entered the collective imagination.

Fallai presents Armani’s fashion creations with his unmistakable black and white style that evokes neorealist cinema, Caravaggio's art and mannerist paintings: they are all timeless images which depict the best possible life. Looking at his shots we focus on the personalities of the characters, the clothes simply become a subtle complement of being alive: the perfect representation of Armani's idea that elegance is not about being noticed, but about being remembered. 

250 photographs narrate decades of their work together: it features the photo with the tiger cub, taken in Palermo when the troupe took refuge at the Togni circus on a rainy day; then the career woman, looking straight ahead towards a bright future in the middle of the crowd in via Durini, below the Armani offices. There is the in-studio evoked Venetian lagoon and the figures of the Foro Italico, translated into a game of clearly-defined graphic shadows.

As Armani says: ‘Right from the start, working with Aldo enabled me to transform the fantasy I had in mind into real images: that my clothes were not only made in a certain way, with certain colours and materials, but represented a way of being, of living. Because I style is a total expression’.

Armani/Silos

From € 6 to € 12

How to get there: M2 green line Porta Genova stop; tram 14

Nari Ward had already captivated Milano in 2022 with Gilded Darkness, the installation at the Piscina Romano in which he covered the swimming pool with a golden expanse of floating thermal blankets, representing the need to return to caring for others.

Ward reappears at the Hangar Bicocca from March 28th - to July 28th with Time and Performativity, a selection of works that explores the theme of time through media such as videos, sound works, performative sculptures and installations.

The works are created by repurposing recycled objects, giving them new life and reflecting on the idea of memory and transformation. Spiritual and conceptual questions cross-examine social and political aspects such as identity, racial issues, justice and consumerism, opening up new possibilities.

A programme of live collaborative actions takes place during the exhibition, to also combine the performative aspect, an essential part of Ward's poetics.

Pirelli HangarBicocca

Free entry

How to get there: metro line M5 Lilla Ponale stop then bus 51 (direction Cimiano M2) Via Chiese – HangarBicocca stop