News

ANSELM KIEFER | HAIM STEINBACH | GILBERTO ZORIO | Sonnabend Collection Mantova | Group Show | Palazzo della Ragione, Mantova

A new contemporary art museum is being established in Mantua, built around one of the most important private collections of the twentieth century: the Sonnabend Collection. The collection will be permanently displayed in the historic city centre, within the newly renovated Palazzo della Ragione. Developed through the vision of collector and art dealer Ileana Sonnabend (1914–2007), her husband Michael Sonnabend (1900–2001), and their adopted son Antonio Homem, the Sonnabend Collection stands as a major testament to the key artistic movements of the second half of the twentieth century. Through their galleries in Paris and New York, the Sonnabends played a pivotal role in promoting American art in Europe and introducing European artists to the United States, shaping the international art scene. The project is led by the Municipality of Mantua in partnership with the Sonnabend Collection Foundation and Marsilio Arte, which will oversee the museum’s overall management, including organization, communication, editorial projects, and the coordination of the bookshop.

• Palazzo della Ragione, Mantova
• Piazza Erbe, 13, 46100 Mantova

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ | Marina Abramović in Stillness in the Storm | Group Show | Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar

"Stillness in the Storm", the new collection exhibition at Voorlinden, offers a moment of reflection in a fast-moving world, showing how silence can become a source of strength. Featuring artists such as Anish Kapoor, Marina Abramović, Massimo Bartolini, and Arturo Hernández Alcázar, the exhibition explores stillness as a response to uncertainty. Through a curated selection of works, the show creates a path toward deeper connection—with oneself and others. Highlights include Alcázar’s suspended "Black Kites (Bird of Ill Omen)" and Bartolini’s meditative "Conveyance" (2024), with its rhythmic, wave-like motion. At its core is Abramović’s "Counting the Rice" (2014), where visitors spend time in focused silence counting grains, turning attention and endurance into a shared yet introspective experience. The exhibition invites audiences to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with what truly matters.

• Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar
• Buurtweg 90, 2244 AG Wassenaar, Paesi Bassi
• 18 novembre 2025 – 17 maggio 2026

WAEL SHAWKY | Drama 1882 | Solo Show | MCA, Sydney

History becomes opera in this extraordinary film installation, presented in its Australian premiere at the MCA. "Drama 1882" recounts a pivotal moment in modern Egyptian history, known as the ‘Urabi Revolt (1879–1882). Unfolding in eight scenes, this captivating 45-minute opera stages key events of the uprising that marked the beginning of British colonial rule in the region, offering a striking retelling of history from a local perspective. Directed, choreographed, and composed by Wael Shawky (b. 1971, Alexandria, Egypt), "Drama 1882" features a cast of Egyptian performers singing in classical Arabic.

• MCA, Sydney
• 140 George, St, The Rocks NSW 2000, Australia
• 4 marzo – 29 giugno 2026

DAVID LAMELAS | David Lamelas: The Machine | Solo Show | Dia Chelsea, New York

"David Lamelas: The Machine" is a survey exhibition dedicated to the Argentine artist and his first major solo presentation in New York. A key yet long-overlooked figure of 1960s and 1970s art, Lamelas has worked across painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and film, moving between Conceptual, Minimalist, and Pop art practices. Presented at Dia Chelsea, the exhibition is structured in three parts: a main presentation, a film program, and a series of performances. The exhibition traces his career from 1965 to the present, including new works, while the film program expands his exploration of media and cinematic language. Among the featured works is the performance "1416 m³" (2014), which uses sound and voice to explore physical and metaphysical space. Overall, the exhibition highlights Lamelas’s lifelong interest in information, communication, and perception. The exhibition is curated by Humberto Moro and organized in partnership with the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA).

• Dia Chelsea, New York
• 537 W 22nd St, New York
• 6 marzo 2026 – 16 gennaio 2027

ANSELM KIEFER | Anselm Kiefer | Solo Show | CAHH, Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero, Valencia

  From 28 April 2026, the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre (CAHH) in Valencia will present the first exhibition in the city dedicated to Anselm Kiefer, developed in close collaboration with the artist and spread across six galleries. The project stems from a long-standing relationship between Kiefer and collector Hortensia Herrero, who began acquiring his work in 2016. The exhibition, curated by Javier Molins, positions Kiefer as a key figure in the centre’s programme of temporary exhibitions and extends the themes already present in the collection, particularly landscape, history, mythology, and literature. On view until October 2026, the exhibition includes major works such as "Danaë", a monumental painting over thirteen metres wide depicting Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport intertwined with the Greek myth of Danaë. Shown only once before in New York in 2022, the work will be exhibited in Europe for the first time.

• Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero, Valencia
• C.del Mar, 31, Ciutat Vella
• 28 aprile – 31 ottobre 2026

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE | The Battle Between YES and NO | Solo Show | Kunsthalle Praha, Prague

"The Battle Between YES and NO" is the first major exhibition in Czechia dedicated to William Kentridge. Raised in Johannesburg during apartheid, Kentridge developed an artistic practice shaped by South Africa’s social and political history, while addressing universal themes such as exile, memory, and desire. Working across drawing, film, sculpture, performance, and opera, he is known for a distinctive, experimental approach that embraces ambiguity and improvisation. The exhibition takes its title from his early works exploring affirmation and denial, where “Yes” and “No” merge into “Noise.” Conceived as a spatial collage, it traces his career from the "Drawings for Projection" series to recent multidisciplinary projects, including works on displacement and failed utopias. Bringing together international loans and pieces from the Kunsthalle Praha Collection, the exhibition also features new works created for Prague. It is accompanied by *A Natural History of the Studio*, a publication based on Kentridge’s 2024 Slade Lectures, offering insight into his creative process. Organised by Kunsthalle Praha in collaboration with the artist, William Kentridge Studio, and Squatelier, the exhibition is supported by a multilingual audioguide developed with the Cabinet of Wonders platform.

• Kunsthalle Praha, Prague
• Klárov 1/5, 118
• 16 aprile – 7 settembre 2026

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ | Dudamel/Abramović | Teatro San Carlo, Naples

The Teatro di San Carlo presents a major new production born from a collaboration between conductor Gustavo Dudamel, performance artist Marina Abramović, and filmmaker Nabil Elderkin, who also directs the video component. The visual design includes lighting by Pasquale Mari. At the center of the program are two works that merge music, theatre, and performance. The first is Histoire du soldat (Story of a Soldier), a story to be read, performed, and danced in two parts, with text by C. F. Ramuz and music by Igor Stravinsky. The role of the narrator is performed by Valentino Mannias. The piece is presented in Italian with Italian and English surtitles. The second is El amor brujo, a one-act “gitaneria” in two tableaux, with music by Manuel de Falla. The performance features mezzo-soprano Pasión Vega and performer Sara Maurizi, and is presented in Spanish with Italian and English surtitles. The Orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo performs in a production by the Teatro di San Carlo in coproduction with the New York Philharmonic. This interdisciplinary project marks a collaboration between Dudamel, Abramović, and Elderkin, bringing together orchestral music, performance art, and visual media.

• Teatro San Carlo, Naples
• Via San Carlo, 98
• 18 – 19 aprile 2026

VANESSA BEECTOFT | GINO DE DOMINICIS | MOCELLIN-PELLEGRINI | GILBERTO ZORIO | Tragicomica | Group Show | MAXXI, Rome

“Io sono un santo” is written in cursive on a canvas that has been torn and cut across its surface—one of the earliest examples of Lucio Fontana’s unmistakable artistic gesture. On the reverse, however, appears the phrase “I am a scoundrel,” forming an ironic self-portrait that subverts the idea of the artist as a figure who elevates both themselves and the viewer through art. The work opens *Tragicomic. Perspectives on Italian Art from the Second Postwar Period to the Present*, the largest exhibition ever dedicated by the MAXXI to contemporary Italian art, produced in collaboration with the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and curated by Andrea Bellini and Francesco Stocchi. The exhibition brings together over 130 artists and 300 works, exploring irony as a defining feature of Italian culture and the tension between the tragic and the comic. Spanning more than eighty years, the show proposes a non-chronological, dialogic reading of artworks, offering an alternative and layered perspective on the Italian art canon. The project also extends into film, literature, philosophy, theatre, design, and architecture, accompanied by a catalogue published by Marsilio and a programme of public events.

• MAXXI, Rome
• Via Guido Reni, 4a
• 1 aprile – 20 settembre 2026

ANSELM KIEFER | I wish to die in autumn moonlight even in darkness not to be lost | Solo Show | Lia Rumma Gallery, Milan

Running parallel to The Women Alchemists, which Kiefer conceived for the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale (open through September 2026), the exhibition at Lia Rumma further expands his continued research of the “alchemists,” delving deeper into the role of other female heroines who, over the centuries, made fundamental contributions to modern science through alchemy. Joining this female pantheon, painted by Kiefer, are mythological figures such as the muses Calliope and Melpomene, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. The exhibition title evokes a poem by 19 th century Japanese poet, Buddhist nun, and ceramist Ōtagaki Rengetsu—to whom Kiefer also dedicates a painting which is presented at the overture of the exhibition.

• Lia Rumma Gallery, Milan
• Via Stilicone, 19
• 17 aprile – 24 luglio 2026